She wasn’t sure how to take the comment until he winked. “It’ll be more like a few days.” He kissed her, and she melted all over again. “Dessa, will you marry me?”
“What?”
“I know it hasn’t been that long, but you seem fond of me and I, well, I can’t seem to imagine life without you.”
She put her hands on either side of his face. “Deke, you would have a ready-made family. You need to think hard on this. I care too much about you to ask such a sacrifice.”
“I have thought on it, most of the night. Your children are my children.”
She sighed and blinked at the tears stinging her eyes. “Do you know I love you?”
“I kind of hoped you did. I love you, too.” He nuzzled her cheek.
The prickly whiskers on his face scraped her tender skin.
“You think on it, and if you say, yes, we’ll find us a preacher as soon as this is over. I’m going to get some coffee going, and then I’m heading out to keep watch for Blake. You okay with the plan?”
She nodded. She was scared, but she could do this. She had to.
The day stretched, and her nerves seemed to unravel. Patience had never been one of her virtues. The girls bickered all day as if they sensed her unease. All the strongbox money had been lain on her freshly-made bed. The empty metal box waited on her rough table. She had to lure Blake into the bedroom if Deke was going to catch him off guard.
“He’s coming.”
Deke’s words turned her stomach. She was going to be sick, here and now.
“Girls, go.” Her voice cracked in desperation. Her older daughter took Leah’s hand to lead her to the barn. “Don’t you dare come out unless one of us tells you.”
“We won’t, Ma.” Hannah seemed to have an innate understanding this was a grave situation.
Dessa could feel her heart beating. It echoed in her ears and pulsed throughout her body. She heard Deke getting in position. The girls were quiet and hiding in the barn. This was her time to face Blake Henry.
Dessa had prepared cookies for Christmas...and Blake Henry. A small detail, a frivolity really, but maybe the outlaw would reason if she made cookies, she planned to be around and eat them. She had them ready, cookies and hot coffee for the outlaw she feared. Not cookies for Saint Nicholas, how funny. Saint Nicholas liked sugarplums anyway, or was that the children? She tried to calm the thoughts that seemed to stampede in her panicked mind. She needed to focus. To remain calm, coherent.
Three slow raps on the door alerted her Blake had arrived. Dessa smoothed her hair and her favorite green dress and greeted her enemy.
“Widow Courtland, you certainly look lovely today, and do I smell cookies baking? I hope that’s a positive sign.”
So far so good. The plan was working.
“Yes. Would you care for a one?” She made every effort to keep her voice calm and pleasant.
“No, thank you. I do believe I see what I want right over there.” He jerked his head to the table.
Dessa followed his gaze to the strongbox. She’d washed Deke’s blood from the exterior. Blake Henry drew in a deep satisfied breath, and his cold eyes crinkled in a smile, but nothing would ever warm their icy depths.
“There was eleven thousand inside. I counted it,” she said as Blake caressed the lid.
Blake opened the box. He jerked around, his face contorted in an evil glare. “There is nothing inside.”
“It’s in my room. As I said, I counted it.” She tried to walk to her bedroom, but Blake Henry caught her before that happened and knocked her to the floor.
“What are you playing at? How much did you keep?” The air whooshed from her lungs as she fell hard on her back. He raised his hand to strike her.
“It’s all on my bed.” She braced for a slap but one didn’t come.
Blake Henry pulled his gun instead.
“Come here.” He pulled her roughly from the floor and held her close to him. “Where are your girls? This feels a lot like a set up, Odessa.”
“My grandma from Kentucky asked me to send them and I did.” The lie fell from her tongue rapidly as Blake wrapped her hair around his hand.
“You walk in that room first.”
She entered the bedroom as a shield for Blake Henry. He was looking at the money on the bed when Deke, who’d used the rope to hide in the chimney came rushing down into the room. “Hold it right there, Blake.”
Blake Henry turned—and laughed. She didn’t expect the laugh.
“Why if it isn’t my nephew, Deacon. What are you doing pointing a gun at your Uncle Blake?”
“Uncle?” What was happening? All this time she thought Deke worked for the sheriff. How could she have been so wrong? Her daughters were going to die; she was going to die. She looked from Deke to Blake Henry. The eyes, the same blue stared at her. Why hadn’t she seen it? She couldn’t keep the whimper from forming as Deke moved the pistol from Blake to her. He came closer. He cocked the pistol, and she backed up, flinching, waiting for the shot.
The sound of another horse approaching drew her attention. More of Henry’s gang? Tears began to streak down her cheeks. Deke was so close, close enough to smell the spicy scent of his shaving soap, close enough to feel the warmth of the body that had claimed hers just last night. At the last second, he pulled her close to him and turned toward Blake Henry.
“I never did like you, Uncle Blake.” Deke sneered.
Blake Henry’s smile faded. “You think you’re a better shot than me?”
Deke didn’t speak; he just kept his gun trained on Blake Henry, and Blake kept his gun pointed at her. Dessa knew they were at an impasse.
“If you shoot me, I’ll shoot her. You got the guts to do that?”
“I do.” The sardonic voice came from her bedroom doorway.
Dessa knew that voice.
J.J. stood in the doorway.
“You have two guns pointing at you Blake, his, and mine. And I don’t miss.” J.J. didn’t seem surprised to have walked into the middle of a potential gunfight.
Blake Henry looked toward the bedroom doorway where J.J. stood. Her cousin had that same cold hard look in his eyes at the moment that Blake did. Blake Henry had blanched under his tan and with a shaking hand, he lowered his gun.
“Dessa, you make the call. You want me to kill him?” J.J. asked. “I can take him outside, so I don’t make a mess in your house.”
Who was this man who so callously discussed the cleanliness of her house in the same breath as killing a man?
“No J.J., just tie him,” she whispered in a shaky voice.
“The sheriff’s on the way,” Deke added. “He’ll take Blake in to stand trial.”
“You would turn your own uncle over to the law?” Blake hissed.
“I am the law.” Deke kept his arm around her, and she didn’t want him to leave her. Her shoulders wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Hmmm.” J.J. nodded, holding his pistol to Blake Henry’s head. “Where are the girls? Safe?”
“In the barn.” Odessa felt a sharp stab of pain. Not her labor, not now.
“This really your uncle, kid?” J.J. questioned Deke with a probing stare.
“Yeah.” Deke’s arm tightened around her.
J.J. laughed. “And you’re a lawman?”
Deke holstered his weapon, reached in his pocket, and pulled out his star. J.J. assessed Deke, noting his hold on her. He pulled his mouth to one side.
“Well, I’ll be. You sparking with my cousin?”
“I’m going to marry her,” Deke answered.
“Guess I can’t kill you if you’re going to marry Dessa.”
“I didn’t ans...” She doubled over as a pain, stronger than the last, sliced through her.
“Labor?” Deke rasped, and all she could do was nod. “Get him out of here.” Deke sneered at Blake Henry and barked the order to her cousin.
“Get...the...bed ready,” she whispered. She’d never had labor come on her like this. It had been slow
, gradually building, but then she’d never been shoved in the floor when she was ready to deliver either. Dessa hoped the baby hadn’t been hurt as the pain eased just a bit.
Deke moved her good quilt from the bed, money and all, and quickly draped the bed with the old quilts on the floor.
“The rope?” She pointed to the chimney.
“I’ll get it. Will you be all right for a few minutes?”
Deke hated to leave Dessa like this, but when she nodded, he headed out to find that cousin of hers. He could hear the girls’ voices. J.J. must have found their hiding spot. Deke walked into the barn and found Blake Henry trussed up like a Christmas goose.
There was something mighty familiar about this cousin, but Deke couldn’t place it. Something about J.J. made him stop and think. He was sure he’d seen the face before, and he’d never seen his uncle so quiet.
“Deacon,” Blake called his name.
J.J. put a boot on Blake’s hind end and shoved him forward. “I done told you to shut up.”
“I’m not turning you loose, Blake, so don’t even ask.” Deke clapped Blake’s hands in iron cuffs for good measure.
“You aren’t going to leave me out here with this madman are you?” Blake whispered.
Deke tilted his head. “You threatened Odessa and her children. I think you’re the madman here.”
J.J. smirked and brought the butt of his pistol on the back of Blake’s head. His uncle dropped like lead. J.J. lifted his head as if he hadn’t just knocked the man unconscious. “Why do the girls think your Saint Nicholas?”
“’Cause he came down the chimney,” Hannah explained.
“Really?” J.J. nodded as if he understood everything.
“Girls, your ma’s birthing the baby. I got to go be with her,” Deke said, pondering the sanity in his words.
“I’ll watch the girls for a bit, but if I see someone coming I’m heading out of here.”
Deke nodded. He had to get back to the house. He scooped up Leah, and J.J. grabbed Hannah. When they got to the house Deke pointed to the roof.
“Can you fetch that rope?” Deke asked, and J.J. gave him a stony look. “Dessa needs it for the birthing,” he added. J.J. nodded, but the man had a serious attitude problem.
Deke knew what women went through in childbirth. His own mother had died giving him life. It scared Deke to think of what Dessa was going to endure.
She waited in her bed, her face drawn from the pain. He sat beside her, and she took his hand.
“We’ll get through this together.” He kissed her fingers.
“And I’ve done this before,” she whispered. “I know what to do. Thank you for being here, Deke.”
Dessa labored into afternoon, and late Christmas Eve, her son came into the world. Deke blinked back tears at the miracle of life he held in his hands.
“We have a son, Dessa.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I’m more sure than I’ve ever been.” He handed her the infant.
“Then, yes. I would love to be your wife.” She held the baby in the crook of one arm and with her free hand she caressed Deke’s cheek. “My brave lawman.”
Deke turned to kiss her palm. “You know, I’m not from a law abiding family. My sister was an outlaw. Those scars on my back were when I got arrested for rustling with Black River Kirby, and the house I grew up in was a brothel.”
“Shhh...It doesn’t matter. You’re the man I love.”
There was a knock at the doorway.
J.J. walked in the room and admired the baby just a moment before speaking. “Look Dessa, I gotta head out, but it appears you’re in good hands.” J.J. leaned over and kissed the infant’s forehead just before he leveled a polar gaze on Deke. “You are going to take care of them?” It was more an order than a question.
“For the rest of my life,” Deke answered.
J.J. nodded with a heaving sigh. “The girls are asleep. It took me forever. They kept wanting me to tell them a story.”
“You take care.” Odessa gave her cousin a sweet smile, and Deke nodded his appreciation to the man who’d come to his aide. J.J. tipped his hat and picked up his saddlebags.
“Merry Christmas.” Deke called.
J.J. smirked. “Sure thing, lawman.”
Deke sat on the bed beside Dessa. He grinned at the perfection of the moment. How could he not? He offered one finger to his new son, and the baby took it. “So what do you want to name him?”
“You know I had a girl’s name ready but hadn’t counted on a boy. I think I want to name him for you and J.J., the two men who saved me. What’s your full name Deke?”
“Deacon Elliot Ramey.”
“Hmmm.” Dessa pondered. “What do you think about Elliot Jesse Courtland? Or James Deacon Courtland. J.J.’s middle name is Woodson. That won’t really work with Courtland.”
“Wait...this one is going to be a Ramey.” Deke paused. He could hear her cousin’s horse trotting away in the distance, just as the cold reality of her words gripped him. “—J.J., Jesse James. Good Lord, woman. I just caught a little fish, Blake Henry, but let the biggest fish walk out of here. Are you telling me that your cousin is Jesse James?”
She scrunched up her face and nodded.
He put his head in his hands. “What kind of lawman am I?”
Dessa just smiled. “You’re my lawman.”
****
Dessa couldn’t remember a better Christmas as she snuggled in Deke’s arms. Deke had turned his uncle and the money over to Sheriff Beckett when he arrived and was getting a reward for both. Little Jess Ramey slept on his adoptive father’s chest. Her son’s little hand clenched tightly on the silver rattle. The girls played with their dolls and brushed each other’s hair with new silver brushes Deke had bought them, and she sat next to the man who’d brought her a miracle of life and love. Maybe Saint Nicholas had really sent her a gift down the chimney.
“I love you, Deke Ramey.”
“I love you Dessa soon-to-be-Ramey.”
“You forgot something.” Hannah’s eyes were wide as if some horrible faux pas had been committed. She waited and prompted, then rolled her eyes.
“What, dear?” Dessa was really going to have to work on Hannah’s manners.
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”
A word about the author...
Mallary Mitchell fell in love with writing at age ten. Two years later she became hooked on romance while staying with her grandmother, who always had a big stash of “happily-ever-afters.” When not writing, she spends time with her children, who also share her love of writing.
Thank you for purchasing
this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Down the Chimney Page 6
