by Caroline Lee
Sighing, the fat one stepped forward and grabbed his shoulders. Jack tried to pull free, but for someone so much shorter than he was, she had quite the grip. She shook him slightly. “Calm down, lad! He’s not here.”
She had to say it again before the words registered, and Jack let himself suck in a full lungful of air. He’s not here. He’s not here. “Where is he, then?” His own voice sounded like it was coming from far away.
“We had to make sure that you understood how important Meri was to your life, dear. We needed to make sure you gave up all of these silly notions of running and hiding without her.”
How did they…? And then his blood began to pound again, and he grabbed the woman’s forearms. What did Meri have to do with any of this? What did they do to her? “Where is Witcher?”
“We sent him to your cabin, dear. Where your wife and daughter are.”
Oh God.
He didn’t know who he knocked over to get past them, but was dimly aware of some feminine voices raised in anger as he ran down Andersen Avenue. All he could think of was Witcher at his home. At his home, with the two most precious people in his world.
The usual spring mud sucked at his boots as he hurdled out of town, and he cursed at the weather for slowing him down. What if he was too late? What if, by the time he got there, Witcher already had his princess back in his possession? What if Meri had tried to protect the little girl—because of course she would—and had been hurt? He found an extra burst of energy, and sped up. What if Witcher had already taken Zelle and the money, and hurt Meri?
Hurt her, when he hadn’t even had the chance to tell her how he felt about her?
Skidding to a stop when he reached the little rise on the way to the cabin, Jack groaned. There was a brown mare, still saddled, tied to the bench in front of his home. Witcher was here.
He threw himself at the front door, determined to stand between his old boss—his old demons—and the women he loved. But it wasn’t until he spun in the middle of the room that he realized they weren’t there—no one was there. “Meri? Princess?” God, his voice sounded terrible. Or maybe it was the way the echoes came back to him hauntingly, letting him know that there wasn’t anyone in the house. Witcher’s horse was out front, but no one was here.
Where were they?
He grabbed the long kitchen knife he’d held that night when Meri had first arrived, and threw himself out the back door. He’d find them. He had to.
Meri had been folding the last of Jack’s shirts when she heard the horse whinny outside. She’d looked up, her heart suddenly beating faster, listening for any more sounds to indicate Jack was back with a wagon. Nothing. She’d glanced at Zelle then, whose eyes were round with fear as well, and had known, just known, that it wasn’t Jack outside.
And if it wasn’t Jack, then it wasn’t a friend. A friend—or someone looking for medical attention—would’ve hallo’d them, but this person… Taking a deep breath, Meri placed her finger to her lips to warn the little girl to stay silent, and then scooped her up on one hip. As the angry pounding began on the front door, she and Zelle had slipped out the back, praying that the stranger hadn’t set anyone to watch the back door.
There was no one there, and she eased the door closed behind her and began to run for the trees that surrounded the little stream past the half-turned over garden. It had to be Witcher, the man Jack had mentioned last night. The man who was coming for him, coming for Zelle.
She remembered the tremble of fear in his voice when he’d told her about Witcher. Maybe, if it’d been daylight, she wouldn’t have heard it. But there, curled up beside him with her head on his chest, she’d felt it. He was scared of Witcher, and that scared Meri.
“Where are you, boy?” The voice boomed out of the cabin, and Meri sucked in a startled gasp. Pressing her back to a tree, she looked around frantically. In her haste to get away from the cabin, away from him, she’d run further from the town. She didn’t have much hope of hiding in this grove of stumpy pines, but the creek—rushing now with the spring melt—might offer a place to hide, if the bank was tall enough. When the man repeated his call—this time with an insult—Meri took a lungful of crisp air and darted for the bank.
She wasn’t fast enough. Maybe he’d seen her, or maybe he’d just guessed well, but the moment after Meri had rolled over the edge of the bank to crouch ankle-deep in the water, she heard him again. Much closer.
“Come on out, lady. I know you’re down there, with the girl, too.”
She held her breath, hoping he was bluffing, hoping he didn’t really know where she was. Zelle whimpered softly against her neck, as if understanding the need for quiet. Her prayers were ignored.
“I’ve got a gun, and I’ll use it if you don’t come up here.” Her heart, which she figured couldn’t pound any harder than it already was, began to slam against her chest. She was sure Zelle could feel it. “Lady, I’m not asking politely again.” The cock of a revolver. “I’ll start shooting.”
Meri stood up hastily, desperate to keep him from firing. She’d do anything to protect Zelle, even if that meant keeping this threatening stranger talking. He was standing in the little clearing, an evil grin on his face, a scar across one eye, and a revolver pointed at the two of them.
Meri’s knees went weak, and she almost collapsed back into the water. But when the man gestured with the gun, she found a hidden strength somewhere. Ignoring her dripping skirt, she scrambled up the bank, trying her best to stay turned so that her body was between Zelle and the man.
When she stood there before him, breathing heavily in fear, she saw him nod approvingly. Her chin came up in response. “You’re Witcher, aren’t you?”
A dark chuckle. “I am. And you must be the delicious Mrs. Gothel.”
Meri’s eyes narrowed, and she backed up a step, careful to stay away from the bank. “I’m Mrs. Carpenter.” She wasn’t really, but this monster didn’t need to know that. The people of Everland considered her Jack’s wife, and she considered herself Jack’s wife… The only impediment was trying to convince Jack of that, and if she and Zelle got out of here alive, she swore that she would try three times as hard.
But he just laughed again at her defiance. “I don’t care what the gutter trash calls himself now. He’ll always be Jack ‘the Hammer’ Gothel.”
“Jack’s name is Carpenter.” Why was Witcher calling him these names?
“You mean the boy still hasn’t told you? Hasn’t even told you his real name?” He shook his head mournfully, but Meri could see right through the act. “Can you even be married, if it’s under the wrong name?”
“What do you want, Mr. Witcher?”
He lifted the gun, and pointed it right at her breast. Right at Zelle. Meri’s blood ran cold. “For starters, I’m tired of having to yell at you. Come closer.” She took a few cautious steps. “Closer.”
When she was just out of his arm’s reach, she stopped, lifting her chin defiantly. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
“That kid you’ve got in your arms.” Meri’s arms instinctively tightened around Zelle, enough so that the little girl cried out a bit and burrowed against her chest once more. “And after that, I plan on killing Jack for taking her. And I’ll get back all the money he stole from me.”
“He didn’t steal her from you.” Her voice shook with the effort of maintaining her false bravado, when all she wanted to do was sink down to the ground and cradle Zelle, and pray for Jack’s safety. “He saved her from you.”
Witcher’s grim chuckle was enough to send chills down her spine. “Is that what he told you? Did he tell you why he was there? No?” Meri didn’t say anything, but was sure her fear showed in her face. “Jack was there to pick her up. It was his job to deliver her to her buyer.”
Her buyer. The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach grew until she was afraid she might throw up. That was all she could focus on; the depravity of men, that one of them would pay that much money for a little girl. “Is
she really royalty?”
Witcher blinked, and his brow rose. Maybe he hadn’t expected questions. “Yeah. Her mother though, she said she was really craving the greens.” Meri didn’t understand, and he must’ve seen it in her face, because he made an exasperated noise and gestured with the gun. “Green, you know? Bills? Money! She sold the little brat to me.”
“I don’t believe you.” No mother could possibly be that heartless. Meri cradled the little girl closer.
Shrugging, he didn’t seem to care what she believed. “The lady needed money for something, that’s all I knew. And I paid her, because I knew that I could make more money—way more money—from a certain gentleman who liked the way royal girls—”
“Stop.” She was going to be sick, and from his cruel smirk, he knew it. “Why would Jack have delivered her to…to…him?” She could say it aloud.
“I told you. It was his job.” He held the revolver casually in his left hand, pointed slightly at the sky while he regarded her. Meri decided that it didn’t matter, though; he was just as menacing with the thing pointed away from Zelle as he had been a moment before… And it was because he was saying such horrible things about Jack. “He’d worked for me for years before some stupid move landed him in Sing Sing, and when he got out, he came back. I knew he would. They always do.”
Her throat was dry. “He worked for you?”
A derisive snort. “You got dirt in your ears? Yeah, that’s what I said.” Zelle whimpered again, and Meri rubbed the girl’s back, pretending an ease she didn’t feel for Zelle’s sake. “He used to be my muscle. Him and the others—oh, I had dozens of ‘em—would make sure my name kept the respect it deserved, if you know what I mean.”
Jack would hurt people? For this man? “I don’t believe you. You’re lying.” She took a step back, but the revolver dropped to point directly at her chest again, and she froze, her heart in her throat.
“Now, why would I lie about something like that? Seems to me that the boy’s been lying to you. Probably thinks his time in Sing Sing changed him, but I know better. Someone like him—someone like me—we don’t change. He’ll be a cutthroat all his life. Until he dies.” Another dark chuckle. “Which will be soon, if I have anything to say about it.”
Oh God. Oh God. He was going to kill Jack, and take Zelle back. Meri’s heart couldn’t beat any faster, and her breaths were coming in great heaving pants. She was desperate to distract him, to keep him talking. “What’s Sing Sing?”
“What’s Sing Sing? Did that boy not tell you a damn truth about himself?” Witcher took a step towards her, and then another, but Meri couldn’t move. “It’s a prison. Jackie boy spent nine years in a hellish prison, Mrs. Gothel, all because he thought that he could change his ways.”
Maybe he saw her eyes widen in surprise, or her face drain of blood, but whatever the reason, Witcher threw his head back and began to laugh, great big booming bursts of mocking laughter. Meri closed her eyes and prayed.
Jack had frozen when he’d stepped into the small grove and heard Witcher’s voice. Stealthily, he crept from tree to tree, trying to see his old boss—his nightmare—and Meri. Was she there? Did he have her already?
When he finally saw them, his heart stopped for a moment. Witcher’s back was to Jack, but he could clearly see Meri—clutching Zelle in her arms—facing the evil man. She kept her chin up bravely, her hand splayed across his princess’s back as if to offer an extra piece of protection, her eyes on the man in front of her. But the gun Witcher held, pointed right at her, was the reason Jack stopped still.
He willed his breathing to quiet, his heartbeat to calm…nothing to let Witcher know that he was there, creeping up behind. Jack had seen his old boss kill men without blinking. Witcher was partial to the old Colt revolver he held, and was known for shooting men in the gut just to watch them squirm in pain before they died. But not today; Jack had no plans to let his evil man shoot either of the ladies he loved.
But he couldn’t just rush in. Instead, he had to crouch there, the handle of the kitchen knife gripped tightly in his sweat-slick palm, and listen to his old boss tell Meri...well, everything. Everything that Jack should’ve told her. Two months ago he’d confessed that he wasn’t a real doctor, but hadn’t told her how or why he’d acquired what little medical training he had. Last night he’d told her that he wasn’t really Zelle’s father, but hadn’t explained how he’d known that Lefty had the little girl. He squeezed his eyes shut, and silently cursed himself for being a damn fool.
He’d worked for Witcher since he was a kid, doing things that he wasn’t proud of now. He hadn’t known anything different, then, but his years in prison—years with Osbourne—had taught him to be ashamed of who he used to be. Last night, when he was trying to ruin her faith in him; then would’ve been the time to tell her all of this.
But he’d taken the coward’s way out, telling her only half, and now she was finding out in the worst way possible. Eyes still closed, he winced to hear Witcher explain what Sing Sing was, and what Jack had been doing there. He opened his eyes to see her face pale alarmingly, and Witcher throw his head back in cruel laughter.
Jack had had enough. With the other man distracted, he might not get a better opportunity. He shook his right hand—the one still gripping the knife—to make sure that he was ready to use it. Stalking forward, he was intent only on reaching his old boss and shutting him up. Whatever he had to do to make sure Witcher wasn’t going to spill any more of Jack’s secrets.
But halfway across the clearing, his attention flickered to Meri. Beautiful, strong Meri, whose back was ramrod-straight as she clutched his princess, keeping Zelle safe. Compassionate, trusting Meri, who thought that he was a good man. Who made him want to be a good man. She wasn’t staring at Witcher in fear, oh no; her gaze was locked on Jack.
He paused, straining to understand what she was trying to tell him. He watched her dark eye flick between his face and the knife in his hand, and then she smiled, a little sadly. And although the moment seemed to stretch between the heartbeats, not once did the love in her expression waver.
She thought he was a good man, but he was about to kill another here in cold blood. She loved him, and he wasn’t worth her love.
But dammit, he wanted to be. He could be.
He’d killed Lefty—not on purpose, but he had meant to seriously hurt the man—to defend Zelle. And when he’d arrived in Everland, he’d known, known that he’d have to kill Witcher if he wanted to keep Zelle safe. He hadn’t wanted to, even then, but he’d been ready for it.
But now, after two months of knowing Meri, of seeing her belief and her trust and her support, of knowing what he knew about her and admiring her so greatly…he couldn’t let her down. Somewhere along the way, he’d fallen in love not just with her, but with the man she believed him to be.
In the time it took to listen to Witcher’s cruel laughter, Jack knew. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill Witcher in cold blood, couldn’t betray Meri’s belief in his own goodness.
Exhaling, Jack lowered his hand—the hand that had raised the kitchen knife to strike at his old nightmare—and then tossed the blade aside. He didn’t need it now. He was more than he’d used to be. Mari had made him more.
He had no idea how to proceed, but it’d be without the knife. He met Meri’s gaze over Witcher’s shoulder, saw the pride in her expression, and nearly smiled. He was moving towards her when the old man suddenly stopped laughing and took a step forward. Jack froze.
Maybe his laughter had been a distraction, or maybe he was just as dangerously unpredictable as Jack recalled. Either way, with one smooth movement, he stepped towards Meri, who was still clutching Zelle in her arms, and whipped her across the face with the Colt revolver.
Through a veil of red, Jack heard Zelle scream, saw the woman he loved fall to the ground, curling around his daughter. And in that moment, all of the soul-searching he’d just done meant nothing. The bastard had hurt both of his ladies, and Witcher w
ould pay.
The older man had already begun to turn when Jack roared, but he didn’t stand a chance. Jack slammed into Witcher, knocking his old boss away from the still, huddled forms on the ground. He felt his shoulder dig into the man’s stomach, felt the sour breath pushed out from surprised lungs, and then they were both rolling along the ground.
Jack came to his hands and knees, only to find that Witcher hadn’t bothered. The older man lay where he’d come to rest, the revolver straight and steady in one hand, pointed right at Jack’s forehead. Even then, even staring down the barrel of the gun that had killed so many, had hurt so many, Jack felt a pulse of relief to know that he was the only one in danger, and a surety that Witcher wasn’t going to walk away from this…even though he held the upper hand. Hell, right now he held all the cards. But somehow, Jack would keep his ladies safe.
“Jack, my boy! So nice of you to finally show up.” The words were welcoming, but the tone was not. It reminded Jack of years of humiliation and bitterness and desperation. “Your lovely Mrs. Gothel and I were just talking about you.”
“Don’t call her that.” Slowly, Jack pushed himself to his knees, the anger beating strong against the inside of his chest caused him to growl. “Don’t call me that anymore.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Doctor.” A quick gesture from the gun made Jack freeze, and Witcher wheezed as he pushed himself to his feet. The old man teetered beside the steep embankment to the creek, but Jack knew it was too much to hope that he’d fall in. And judging from the cruel grin on Witcher’s face, the bastard knew it. “You know you’ll never be anything more than one of my thugs, boy. Only this time, you didn’t come when you were called, and I’m going to make you pay for that.”
“You can leave now, Witcher.” Jack eyed the revolver as he slowly came to his feet, hands out from his side to show he was unarmed. “Hell, I’ll give you the rest of the gold if you forget you found us. No one gets hurt that way.”
