by Jodi Thomas
No wonder she was always around the house. She had no family in the hills to go home to. She was living right under the same roof, and he was too dumb to know it. She’d played him as no one else had ever played him. And when they were alone, she played him for a fool.
Today, in the shadow of the trees, he’d thought he was falling in love with her. Falling in love for the first time.
Lewt swore under his breath. “Falling in love for the last time. Damn dumb thing to do.”
He didn’t hate her, he hated himself for being so blind. He could have made love to her today, but he hadn’t; he wanted to wait because she was so special. More special than the McMurray girls with their small talk and their lace napkins. His Em was so much more, so much deeper, so much more worth the loving.
Only his Em wasn’t what she appeared to be. She wasn’t his Em, she was Emily McMurray, a rich pampered brat who thought she could play with a man. How she must have laughed at him.
Lewt accepted the bottle from Duncan and downed a third of it.
Duncan laughed. “Slow down there, partner,” he said. “I’ve never known you to drink like that.”
Lewt noticed Em—correction, Emily—step into the circle of light from the fire. Her slender body moved with such grace, even now, that knowing what he knew about her, his hand itched to touch her.
He forced himself to turn away and face Duncan as he downed another drink. “I’m thinking about becoming the town drunk as soon as I can find a town with an opening.” He glared at Em. “You were right, Duncan, I should never have gone to Whispering Mountain. Men like me don’t belong there. While I’m still sober enough, I wish to say I’m deeply sorry to have tricked my way into your plan to marry off your cousins and I wish you more success next time. From my point of view, you’ll need it.”
Duncan took the bottle. “I’d be mad at you, but you seem to have been beat up enough. Don’t feel alone, though; the girls have been playing tricks on me for as long as I can remember. Maybe this time I’ll let you live for what you did back there for me. Besides, you look like a man bent on killing himself.”
He started to offer Lewt the bottle, then thought better of it. “How about we call it even? You got me out of that hell, and apparently you sent yourself into a whole different kind of one.”
They heard a horse ride out, and all turned.
“Where’s Wyatt going?” Lewt asked.
“He’s running patrol down by the water. It’s unlikely, but Toledo might send a few of her guards to find us. I really doubt it, though. I wasn’t worth that much to her. My guess is she’ll cut her losses, and tomorrow it’ll be business as usual around Three Forks.”
“Where is the girl?” Lewt asked. “Didn’t she make the trip with you?”
Duncan nodded. “She’s over there curled up asleep in the dark. It seems she likes me all right, but she’s afraid of Sumner and Wyatt. She watches them as if she thinks they might attack her at any moment. So after supper, I finally sat with her and got her to sleep. It’s really sad to think that the only time she feels safe is when she’s locked in a room.”
“What are you going to do with her?”
Duncan shook his head. “If she has people, I can’t get her to talk and tell me where they might be. My guess is she doesn’t have anyone, or she wouldn’t have been with the witch. She’s so young, she’ll need folks to take her in and take care of her.”
“Duncan.” Wyatt’s voice echoed through the night air. He’d ridden out on a horse a few minutes before, but now he dismounted and walked back toward the fire.
Both men looked up as Wyatt’s shadow continued to come closer, as if he didn’t want to yell.
“You need to come with me.” Wyatt pointed with his head. “I found a horse out here.”
Lewt grinned. “We found your Shadow, but she wouldn’t come within fifty feet of us. I guess she followed us over.”
Duncan ran to Lewt’s horse and took off. “Thanks,” he yelled back at Lewt.
Lewt managed a smile. “Got any coffee?” he asked Sumner as he warmed by the fire.
“Yep,” Sumner said. “And there’s stew in the pot. We figured you two would be in sometime tonight, so we left it warming.”
Em didn’t look at Lewt as she helped herself to the stew. She’d been so quiet he’d almost forgotten she was there.
Lewt watched her out of the corner of his eye. He was starving, but he wasn’t going to ask her to pass him a bowl or get anywhere close to the pot until she moved away. He didn’t want to be in the same state with her, much less around the same campfire. The sisters would probably put their heads together and have a great laugh when she got back home and told them what a fool she’d made out of the gambler.
He’s spent his life reading people. It didn’t seem possible that those three could have fooled him. Thinking back, he knew the signs were there, he’d just been too distracted to notice.
The night seemed suddenly very quiet. The fire crackled and now and then an owl hooted from somewhere beyond the light. Sumner banged around the camp collecting cups and tossing out bedrolls. When Em moved away, Lewt filled his bowl and sat as far away from her as he could manage and still be in the light of the fire. He ate without tasting the food.
Finally, the old man seemed to have had enough of the silence. Sumner stood halfway between them and cleared his throat. “I’ve watched you two for a week,” he said, without looking at either one of them. “It surprised the hell out of me, but you seemed to get along. Now, the way I see it is, neither one of you has enough friends to lose one over a minor lie. Lewt, you lied to get introduced to a McMurray, and Miss Em, you lied so you wouldn’t have to meet him. In my book that means the lies cancel each other out.”
“Nobody asked for your opinion.” Lewt said.
“It’s none of your business,” Em added, as she began scraping the dishes clean.
Sumner swore and moved toward his horse. “Think I’ll ride out and talk to that devil of a horse Duck rides. He’s better company than you two.”
Before either of them could say anything, he was gone.
Lewt stood staring at the fire for a long while, and then he rummaged through the packs and found the clothes he’d bought when he’d gone to Anderson Glen with Em. He began stripping off the remains of his wrinkled muddy suit as he remembered how they’d had fun eating in the café. She’d been pretending to be a man then—and not doing a very good job of it, as he remembered.
He wasn’t surprised when he heard Em’s sharp voice. “You’re not going to undress in front of the fire, are you?”
“Why not? No one’s here and you’ve seen me before.”
She turned her back. “That doesn’t mean I want to see you again.”
“Well, as soon as I can get out of here, lady, you’ ll never have to see me again, so you might as well take a last look.” He stripped down to his skin and grabbed the warm work shirt. “I can’t believe I was just a game to you ladies. What did you do, decide which one of you was going to play me? Tell me, did the short straw get me, or was it more like a vote to see who had to play the charade?”
Em turned her head toward him, squealed, and turned back around.
Lewt smiled. “Now you know, darling, what I look like all over.”
“I already knew,” she shot back. “I saw you sleeping in the bath.”
He pulled on his heavy twill trousers. “I don’t care.”
She faced him as he buckled his belt and reached for his coat. “I’m not the only one who lied here, Paterson, so get off that high horse. Your whole life story was a lie.”
“You’re right, Miss Emily. I lied to try to make a dream come true. I wanted the normal life everyone else seems to have. But you, you lied for the fun of it. Just a little trick you played at my expense. Tell me, did Boyd and Davis know? Were they in on the game? Sumner must have been and all the other hands. And sweet-little-always-sewing Emily or whatever her name is, did she just go along, or did you pay
her?”
Em frowned. “We paid her, but she’s a friend; she would have helped just because I asked her to. Her real name is Tamela. Everyone always said we looked alike in school, and she was between husbands at the moment, so she thought it would be fun.”
“I don’t give a damn,” he yelled.
“Don’t you dare swear at me.” She moved a few feet closer.
“Why? Hasn’t anyone ever yelled at the rich little Miss Emily McMurray before? I find that hard to believe, as irritating as you are most of the time.”
She raised her hand to slap him, and he caught her wrist in midair. For a blink he saw fear flash in her eyes, and he realized she thought he might hit her.
He dropped her hand and stepped away, all the anger knocked out of him without a blow. If he ever got through hating himself, he decided he’d hate her for a while. All the years he was growing up he’d always thought of himself as worthless; everyone including his parents treated him so. With one look she’d told him what she thought of him. She agreed with the majority. She thought he might be the kind of man who hurt women, the lowest kind of man.
He turned his back, closed his eyes, and wished that they could go back to the cottonwoods, where there was no world but the trees. Her lie had taken that memory from him. He hadn’t held his Em, he’d held Emily McMurray.
When he opened his eyes, he was looking down the barrel of a gun.
“Don’t make any fast moves, mister,” a voice with an Irish favoring whispered. “I don’t want to have to fire this thing. It might bring back the other men.”
Lewt stood perfectly still. Even in the poor light he recognized the two cooks he’d seen in the kitchen of Three Forks. The tall one held a rifle so old he doubted it would fire, but he didn’t want to test it. Part of him wanted to yell at the cook to just shoot him. It might be better than letting Em kill him a slice at a time with her looks.
“You was one of the men who took Anna, weren’t you?” The shorter cook moved forward. “Sarah J, I think we’ve found the right camp.”
Lewt doubted if there were many campfires around this part of the country, but if these two could find them it wouldn’t be long before Toledo’s men came riding in. “What are you doing here?” Surely the old witch hadn’t sent the cooks to kill the men who took Duncan.
“When you left, all hell broke loose. Toledo sent everyone but us out to track you down. Then she went into a rage like I never seen in my life. She kept yelling, ‘I got to get her back. I got to get her back.’ It took me and Sarah J a while to figure out that she didn’t care nothing about the ranger, it was the girl she thought she had to have back.”
Em moved up, and to Lewt’s surprise the woman lowered her gun, as if seeing a woman by his side somehow made Lewt not so frightening.
“We have coffee,” Em said, as if she hadn’t noticed the rifle. “You’re welcome to some and the fire.”
It crossed Lewt’s mind that since Em hated him, she might not think it all that unusual for these women to threaten to kill him. With his luck, over coffee they’d form a lynch mob.
When the ladies sat down as if they were at a tea party, Em began, “Duncan told Lewt the girl, Anna, was mistreated by your boss. It’s my understanding that he didn’t take her against her will.”
“That’s no lie,” Rachel whispered. “I’ve seen dogs treated better than that child. We even asked him, if he lived long enough and tried to escape, to take her with him.”
Em continued, “Why would this old woman want her if she only beats her and locks her away?”
Both women shook their heads, but Rachel spoke for them both. “We don’t know, miss. We decided to take our chances and leave when all the trouble started. We hitched our two mules to our wagon, stole all the food and money we could find lying around, and headed here. A few hours ago we got to the river and found Toledo’s guards camped about three miles downriver.”
Sarah J smiled and interrupted. “Rachel offered them some of the fresh bread we brought and told them Toledo, in her rage, had fired us. For a few coins they helped us cross the river. Then we followed the water’s edge, hoping to find a road or a camp that would let us travel with them or at least point us in the right direction.”
“Are Toledo’s men coming after us?” Lewt asked from where he stood in the shadows.
All three women looked up at him as if he were bothering them.
“Not tonight,” Rachel predicted. “They sent a rider back to Three Forks to ask Toledo what they should do. She’s got them all afraid to think for themselves. From what I gathered, they don’t think you’ve crossed yet, but they don’t have enough men to patrol the river. The old witch’s orders were for them to catch you before you crossed. They’ll have to get new orders before they come this way, and that will take another day.”
Sarah J giggled, interrupting again. “After learning we were fired, I think they’re worried about their jobs. We didn’t tell them, but from what we heard the old woman screaming, she plans to go to hell and back to get that girl. The guards are all hired hands with no love or loyalty to Toledo. They may not see a profit in that.”
“And,” Rachel said, with a nod toward her sister, “that Ramon is right behind her. He wants what he considers soon to be his.” She shook her head at Lewt, looking very much like a schoolteacher talking to a wayward student. “Why did you leave that man alive? If I’d just had a few more minutes before they found him, he would have been leaking blood.”
Lewt was starting to believe the story about the cooks being murderers.
Duncan, Sumner, and Wyatt returned. After the surprise of guests at their campfire, they asked a dozen questions. The two little ladies seemed pleased to be the center of attention.
As the fire aged, Anna woke and stepped into the light. She looked very much the frightened child, but Duncan and the ladies had talked of her being older than she appeared. The cooks seemed to think that maybe she’d been beaten so many times she was simple in the mind.
She let the two cooks hug her and make a fuss over her being free, but when she settled down to eat more stew, she sat next to Duncan.
Lewt studied them. Duncan was protective of her and kind, but not like a lover or even a friend. More like a father, even though they were not that many years different in age. Anna was good at playing a child. Lewt had seen women do it in saloons now and then. One girl swore she was just sixteen until she was well into her thirties.
As the others talked of what to do, Lewt watched Em, or Emily, and wondered if she’d ever sit within touching distance of him again.
Finally, when everyone had turned in except Wyatt, who took the first watch, Lewt lay on his bedroll knowing that he’d not sleep. Despite all the arguing, he wanted Em near, but she’d spread her blanket on the other side of the fire.
After an hour of staring at the stars, Lewt got up and took over the watch. If he couldn’t sleep, he might as well let Wyatt.
He walked the edges of the camp with a rifle in his hand. The fire was low, and the place looked peaceful. The two cooks were sleeping in their wagon. Wyatt and Sumner used their saddles as pillows and slept facing out, away from the fire, so they’d see anything coming in a blink. Duncan and the girl were near the trees, their bedrolls almost touching. Em slept alone, close to the dying embers.
After a while, Lewt walked over and sat on a log a foot from her bedroll. Without giving it much thought, he reached down and closed his fingers around her hand.
She didn’t open her eyes, but he felt her hand close around his and he thought he saw a slight smile on her sleeping face.
It was enough to make him believe in possibilities.
He decided that what they’d had beneath the cottonwoods was real, and if it was real, maybe they could build on that and forgive each other the beginning.
CHAPTER 32
AT DAWN DUNCAN HAD EVERYONE UP AND READY TO travel. He’d talked possibilities over with the group and come up with only one logical answer.
They’d all have to stay together until Austin. The wagon would double the amount of time it would take, but the cooks couldn’t ride a horse, even if they had an extra few, and he couldn’t leave them behind. If Toledo’s men crossed the border, they’d have little trouble tracking the wagon and the women would be killed.
Duncan frowned, thinking that for a man who always traveled light, he was collecting far too much baggage. The men could all take care of themselves, but Duncan couldn’t forget that they were in this mess because of him. Anna was always in his shadow, looking for him to protect her. Emily might be a fine horsewoman and a great shot, but she would be no match for the cutthroats who worked for Toledo. The two cooks didn’t even seem to know what direction to go.
Wyatt offered to ride ahead and get help, but if trouble came it would be soon and Duncan might need his friend’s gun. The hardened ranger didn’t seem to know how to talk to any of the women, so he stayed out of their way as much as possible.
To make matters worse, if things could get worse, Lewt and Emily weren’t speaking to each other. Sumner thought the two murdering cooks should be tied up until he could find out more about them. Em refused to ride in the wagon, where she’d be safer if they were attacked, and Wyatt looked at him now and then as if he thought Duncan had completely lost his mind.
So, with his band in tow, Duncan set out to Austin, hoping to get there as fast as possible. Within an hour it became obvious that if they wanted to keep the mules on the road, someone who knew how to drive a wagon was going to have to relieve the cooks.
Duncan tried not to swear as he climbed on the bench beside the cooks and took the first shift as their driver. His hope that they might not talk evaporated in seconds.
“Well, Ranger, tell us, will it go worse for us now that we’re not only murderers, but thieves as well?” Sarah J looked thoughtful. “I told Sister not to take the money we found in Toledo’s desk, but she thought we might need it.”
