Shadow's Stand

by Sarah McCarty

  She’d gotten half her wish.

  They were in a hotel a day away from Barren Ridge. Four days away from Hell’s Eight. Fei had studiously avoided him on the ride, seeming to gravitate to Tucker, riding with him, and talking to him to the point Shadow had felt a bite of jealousy. Another new emotion and one he’d never felt before. He didn’t particularly want to feel it right now when his emotions felt like raw meat sizzling on a fire. She hadn’t even said thank you. Then again, neither had he. He ran his fingers through his hair. Maybe he was a little one-sided at times with how he saw things.

  Movement in the street below caught his eye. A familiar figure dressed in black drew his attention—Fei. He’d recognize that demure bring-on-the-world walk anywhere. She was supposed to be resting in her room. What was she doing out? She was moving at a fast pace, looking nervously over her shoulder as she stepped up onto the wooden walk on the far side of the street, heading toward the…saloon?

  Where was Tucker? He was supposed to be watching her. Disregarding the impact to her reputation, there was no end of trouble Fei could get into in a saloon. Just when he was about to head down and drag her home and to hell with the risk of being recognized by someone, she came out. Her step seemed lighter. And that might have been a smile on her face.

  What was she up to?

  She crossed the street and disappeared out of sight unto a storefront. He couldn’t see what kind of shop it was from here. If he remembered correctly, it might just have been a dry-goods store. He waited for her to come out, scanning the surroundings constantly for any threat. His patience wore thin when ten minutes passed and there was no still sign of her. He pounded on the wall. “Tracker!”

  After a moment, Tracker entered the room, bare-chested, stretching and yawning. Clearly he’d been asleep. He stopped inside the door. “You pounded?”

  Shadow continued to look out the window. “Fei is out.”

  Tracker cocked an eyebrow at him. “And?”

  “She’s up to something.”

  “She’s not a prisoner.”

  Shadow checked the street again. Still no sign of her. “She gets into trouble.”

  “She’s a grown woman.”

  “That just means she gets into bigger trouble.”

  Tracker leaned his shoulder against the wall. “She seemed to handle herself just fine with Daniels.”

  Shadow let the curtain drop and turned around. “She blew up a damn cavern while she was in it.”

  Tracker shrugged. “And walked out alive.”

  “If we hadn’t been there she wouldn’t have.”

  “But we were there. And isn’t it the Hell’s Eight motto that any plan that ends with us walking out alive is a good one?”

  “It’s not hers.”

  Tracker sat on the bed and leaned back against the headboard and just shook his head.

  “What are you staring at?” Shadow demanded.

  “You. You’ve really got it bad, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Love.”

  Panic flared in Shadow’s gut. “Don’t say that.”

  If it wasn’t said, fate couldn’t feel tempted and she wouldn’t be hurt.

  “I am not in love with Fei.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Shadow set his jaw. “She deserves better.”

  “Where do you think she’s going to find that?”

  “Her uncles have found her someone.”

  That gave Tracker pause. “Her uncles?”

  “Yes.”

  “Found? As in ‘we went shopping for canned goods and look what we found for you along the way’?”

  “Arranged marriages are tradition among her people.”

  “So is kidnapping among ours. Doesn’t mean I hold with it.”

  “Just drop it, Tracker.”

  “I don’t think I will. You dragged me out of a good sleep for this parlay, so I think I’ve got some room to ask questions. The first one being just what exactly makes this man so desirable?”

  “Her uncles said he’s of good family, owns several dry-good stores and is generally stable.” He left out the part about Fei being second wife.

  “He sounds as boring as hell.”

  “Fei will be safe there.”

  Tracker laughed out loud and shook his head. “Have you met your wife, Shadow? The woman plays with dynamite.”

  The nudge of truth was unwelcome. “She probably isn’t my wife.”

  Tracker sat up a little straighter. “Did you sleep with her?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I’ll ask a different way, then. Are you using her?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Then she’s your wife.”

  And yet it touches me.

  Fei had been miles from him, and his past had found her, putting her in danger. Married, it would be a constant way of life. “No promises were made.”

  “How convenient.” Tracker’s drawl deepened with disgust. Not something he was used to hearing in his brother’s voice when it came to him.

  “Son of a bitch, Tracker, she doesn’t want to be married!”

  “I don’t blame her. A woman likes to know her husband knows his own mind.”

  “I know my mind.”

  Tracker went back to leaning against the headboard. “Part of it anyway.”

  Shadow was in no mood for this. “What the hell are you implying?”

  There was a long pause. Tracker ran his hand through his hair. Something he only did when uncomfortable. His lips thinned and his gaze narrowed the smallest bit. “We should have talked about this long ago.”

  It was Shadow’s turn to push his hair off his face. “No.”

  “Yes.” Tracker shook his head. “It doesn’t do any good to pretend it’s not there.”

  “We were kids.”

  “And now we’re not, but sometimes I think the old man is still there behind me, belt in hand, ready to tear apart the smallest good I find.”

  Shadow took another step into the center of the room. Another step toward Tracker. “Stop it.”

  Tracker stood then, the same legacy of hate in his eyes. “I was there, Shadow. I know exactly what it’s like to wonder why your father hates you. To try not to love because you know whatever it is will be hurt. I know that feeling of failure that settles into your gut when you loved despite yourself and he found out. The inability to save what you loved. I remember the beatings, the hate. Hell, I took beatings for you and you for me. Beatings we got for no other reason than we wouldn’t turn on each other. We survived and we’ve both got the scars to prove it.”

  Shadow hated the child he’d been then. Too weak to save his brother, his dog, his cat, his mother. He’d sworn never to be that weak again.

  Tracker took a step forward. Close enough to touch. Shadow couldn’t bring himself to reach out, bridge that gap.

  “That was a long time ago.”

  Tracker put his hand on Shadow’s shoulder. “Yeah, but sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, I’m still there.”

  Shadow took a step back, away from the comfort that felt like weakness. “The old man has a long arm.”

  “It’s getting shorter.”

  Not in Shadow’s experience. “Why?”

  Tracker folded his arms across his chest and dropped the name like a challenge. “Ari.”

  His wife. The woman who’d brought the sun to Tracker’s world and the darkness to his. A lot had changed between them when Tracker had found his wife. A lot had been lost.

  “She does love you.”

  “You finally believe that?”

  “I wouldn’t have killed Amboy the way I did if I didn’t.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Tracker dropped his hands to his sides. The easy camaraderie that was always between them frayed under the strain of the changes of the past year and a half.

  “I want to thank you for that gift, and then I want you to take it back.”

  Well, Shadow di
dn’t want this. He wanted his brother the way he used to be. “Is this where you tell me you’re going to you kick my ass?”

  Tracker’s eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t planning on it, but you’re fast changing my mind.”

  Shadow ran his hand though his hair and shook his head. He was too tired to fight tonight. “Just tell me what this gift is you want me to take back…get it over with.”

  “You killed Amboy to give me Ari.”

  He’d killed Amboy so his brother could be happy. “Happy birthday.”

  Tracker’s mouth thinned. A sure sign he was about to start swinging. Some part of Shadow took perverse satisfaction at getting under his brother’s skin.

  “I want you to take it back,” Tracker said.

  “Amboy will be stinking to high heaven by now. Sure you want me digging him up?”

  “No.” An expression Shadow’d never seen before crossed his brother’s face. Utter weariness, mixed with…defeat? Shit, nothing ever defeated Tracker. He was a fighter. The one Shadow could always count on to knock heads rather than glasses. By rights, Shadow should be swallowing teeth.

  “Tracker?”

  Tracker shook his head, cutting him off with a wave of his hand. “I don’t give a shit about Amboy, but if you can find where you buried my brother, I’ll take him back any way he comes.”

  Shadow stood there as Tracker turned away, feeling his pain like a new cut as it mixed with his own. It’d always been he and Tracker against the world, even within the camaraderie of the Hell’s Eight, they had been a separate entity. Tracker had been his anchor and he Tracker’s. Until Ari. When Tracker found Ari, that had all changed. It was no longer Tracker and Shadow. The bond had shifted, broken. He didn’t begrudge his brother his happiness, but he wasn’t going to get in the way of it.

  “You have Ari now,” he called, stopping Tracker before he reached the door.

  “Yes.” Tracker didn’t look back.

  “You’re happy with her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “It is.” This time Tracker turned. His expression was as impassive as Shadow had ever seen it. “And not to pop your swelled head, but there’s nothing you could do to ruin that.”

  “Really? She seemed a bit testy when I was around.”

  “You know her history. You know why. You just didn’t stick around long enough for her to stop being afraid. You ran.”

  He was getting damn tired of people accusing him of running. “What do you want from me, Tracker?”

  “I want you to understand it’s not either-or, Shadow. Any choice like that is unnatural, but if push came to shove and I had to choose between you and Ari, I’d choose Ari.”

  Shadow flinched at the blatant truth. “Of course.”

  Tracker opened the door and glanced back, holding Shadow’s gaze, letting him see his pain and frustration. His anger. “The exact same way you’d choose Fei.”

  THE EXACT SAME WAY you’d choose Fei.

  The truth hit Shadow with the force of a sledgehammer. Tracker was right. If he had to choose, he would choose Fei because she was his future, his better half. Because that was the way it was supposed to be. But loving Fei didn’t mean he loved his brother less. He toyed with the understanding, poking it from different angles, checking it against what he’d always assumed. Whenever he tried to take Tracker out of the equation, it didn’t add up. The same thing happened when he tried to take Fei out. They both belonged in his life. They were both necessary. And he understood. Adding Fei to his life was like adding another room to the house. It didn’t ruin the structure, just created more space to be enjoyed.

  It’s not either-or.

  No it wasn’t. It’d just taken him a lot longer than most to realize.

  He rapped on the wall. Tracker didn’t rap back. Shit. He pulled on his shirt. It was going to be up to him to mend this fence. Before he could leave, a knock came at the door. Palming his knife, Shadow leaned back against the wall beside the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Fei.”

  He opened the door. Fei stood there dressed in a pretty white dress with blue flowers. Obviously new. She blinked as she took in his open shirt. Her gaze dropped to his pants and they widened. She licked her lips.

  Following her gaze, he saw his pants were unbuttoned. “Sorry.”

  Her hand came over his. “Don’t button them on my account.”

  He didn’t know what to make of that. “Tracker just took me to task for taking advantage of you.”

  “Your brother needs to mind his own business.”

  “I’ll tell him you said so.”

  “Please do not.”

  She was just a little afraid of Tracker. He smiled.

  “May I come in?”

  He stepped back. She breezed in. She had that same bounce in her step that she’d had leaving the saloon. He scanned the lay of her dress for any betraying bulges. She didn’t appear to be packing any dynamite. “What are you up to, Fei?”

  “What makes you think I must be up to something?”

  “What were you doing in the saloon?”

  “You were spying.”

  “I was just watching the street.”

  “I ordered a tub for us. One big enough you can soak. It was the only place that had one.”

  Son of a bitch. The woman never stopped surprising him.

  “What did you think I was doing?” she asked.

  “I had no idea.”

  She took a step closer. “But you worried?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  There was no hope for it. The woman had ordered him a tub. He had to fess up. “Because last time we talked you said you hated me.”

  She sighed. “I tried to correct that, but you wouldn’t let me.”

  “I was busy.”

  “And I was mad.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t listen.”

  “I listen. I just don’t agree.”

  “If the only words you hear are the ones you agree with then you do not listen.”

  She had him there. “You’re right.”

  She blinked. “I am?”

  He nodded. “I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I can be a pigheaded—”

  “Ass?” she finished for him.

  “Yeah.” She smiled and smoothed her hand up his forearm. “I have decided you cannot help it. You are very protective.”

  “Is that what you’re calling it?”

  “Yes. To the point you protect the ones you love from yourself.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But, Shadow?”

  “What?”

  She took that step in that brought her thighs against his. She placed her palms against his chest, connecting them. “I do not want to be protected from you.”

  He should push her away. Instead, he brought her closer, sliding his fingers through her hair, savoring the feel of her body against his, opening his senses to the feel of her, the scent of her. The reality of her. “You should.”

  “Only if you want to be protected from me?”

  Hell, no. “Not a chance. What other woman is going to march into my room and tell me to leave my pants unbuttoned, invite me to take advantage of her and inform me that I love her?”

  “I did not tell you you loved me.”

  “You implied it.”

  “That is not the same.”

  “Very true.”

  She waited. He knew what she wanted. The words clogged in his throat. Smoothing his thumb over her lips, he shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  Her smile faltered. “You cannot say it?”

  “I want to.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t want her to know that part of his past. That ugly part of him. “No good ever came of it.”

  “Are you telling me I am wrong?”

  He didn’t know how to answer that.

  She touched a bruise on his chest, tracing the shape with her fingertip. Her t
ongue peeked out between her teeth. Her head cocked to the side as she looked into his eyes, everything she felt inside visible in her expression. Desire. Uncertainty. Love. So much love.