by Jodi Thomas
Several minutes passed. The shop grew dark. She listened closely and thought she heard him walking around downstairs. It crossed her mind that he made no more noise than a cat on the creaky old floor of the shop.
Huddling against the railing, Lacy shivered from cold as well as fear. She never really believed, not for a minute, that Zeb would truly come after her. Not until now.
How could the old buffalo hunter think she had his gold? He must have come straight from prison. But why her? Lacy didn't want to think about the answer, but it whispered in the snowy wind. Zeb had come here first because she'd been the easiest to find. Because he must know that she lived alone, and until last night, Zeb Whitaker would have been right.
If Walker hadn't been there, she would have worked longer. She would have lit the lamp. She would already be dead.
Another round splintered into the wood below, and somewhere beyond the store, gunfire echoed in the night.
Lacy pushed harder against the wall as if she could disappear. The old Colt she'd told Walker would be all the protection she needed was half a floor away and of no use to her. If she climbed the steps, she'd be out in the open on the landing leading to her apartment door. She'd be in full view of the windows. All she could do was wait.
Only silence below. Silence and the wind.
"Walker!" Sheriff Riley's voice sounded from somewhere in the street. "You and Lacy all right?"
Lacy stood and peered through the banister, but the town beyond her broken windows seemed only a blur of blowing snow.
"We're all right!" Walker yelled back.
"Then lower your weapon," Riley answered back, "we're coming in."
The shop filled with men. They materialized from the darkness and snow. A few used the door, but most just stomped their way through the broken windows. Willard, the mercantile owner, carrying a rifle like he held his broom, led the way. Next came Joel, the new deputy, who patted his hol- stered gun to make sure it was there. A few cowhands who always played poker in the window of the saloon rushed in followed by Mosely, the livery owner, whose smell would remain long after he departed.
Lacy watched them relax as they all talked at once. She noticed their weapons moved to their shoulders or were lowered to point to the floor, but not one laid his gun down. These townsmen, who only told stories of wars long ago, had picked up their weapons as easily as an old knight might lift his armor and step back into a role he once lived.
Walker circled among the men, his men now, asking questions, collecting details of who saw what. Sheriff Riley seemed far more interested in getting warm than solving any crime, and his deputy watched Walker, picking up tips he'd store until needed later.
She tried to understand what they were saying, but she couldn't make herself go downstairs. The knowledge that she really was in danger made her shake more than the cold. And somehow, while he'd appeared to be visiting with the men earlier, Walker had set up his troops. They might not have caught their man tonight, but Zeb Whitaker would never again assume she was unprotected.
In what seemed like only a few minutes, the men patched the window with boards, and Walker thanked each one. She heard him locking the door and heading up the stairs.
"Lacy?" he said as he found her clenching the railing with both hands. "Lacy? Are you all right?"
She didn't look at him. She'd been playing what-if in her mind. What if she'd been shot? What if he'd been killed? A
part of her feared that if she glanced up, she'd see blood.
Without a word, he pried her fingers free, lifted her as if she were a child, and carried her up the rest of the steps. Once in the tiny apartment, he wrapped her in a quilt and sat her down in one of the kitchen chairs while he built the fire and made sure all the doors were locked.
When he returned to her, she was still shivering.
"Lacy?" He frowned.
She didn't turn. Didn't want him to see how frightened she'd been or how big a fool she'd played for not believing first the sheriff, then Walker, that there really was a danger. It had been so many years since Zeb had grabbed her and tried to kidnap her. She'd only been fifteen then, and even now the memories were more nightmare than reality.
"Lacy!" Walker snapped finally, demanding her attention as he pulled her to her feet..
She didn't answer. She was lost in a memory of a rainy dawn ... of Zeb Whitaker's hands grabbing at the front of her dress ... of knowing that she wasn't strong enough to fight him as he pulled her toward the wagon and told her of what he planned to do with her. Of how he'd throw her away like trash once she was all used up.
When she didn't look at Walker, he wrapped another blanket around her and hurried to the sink to make coffee.
But the water pump was frozen, and neither of them had remembered to set out water earlier.
Lacy's teeth chattered not from the cold now, but from the returning of a nightmare. Zeb had slapped her so hard she was afraid to cry. She'd waited on the cold, rainy morning, knowing that she was about to die. Wishing that she'd die before he made good on his threats.
Walker shoved another stick of wood into the little stove as if it could somehow warm the room instantly. He walked back to Lacy and, after a moment's hesitation, wrapped his arms around her, blankets and all.
Lacy pulled away. But his hold only increased. Feeling trapped, she fought to free herself, kicking and pushing with all her strength, but the blanket and his arms wouldn't let her move. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew he was only trying to help, but that didn't stop the panic as the memories flooded her thoughts.
She struggled, fighting harder. "Put me down!" she screamed. "Let me go!"
He dropped her so suddenly, she almost tumbled to the floor.
"I was only trying to help you get warm." He dug his hand through his dark hair, erasing any order. "You don't have to yell as if I were attacking you. I feared you might go into shock."
Lacy stumbled on the corners of the quilts as she moved backward until she hit the wall. "Don't ever grab me like that again. I don't like to be grabbed."
"But..." He didn't finish.
Lacy straightened, knowing that she was being unreasonable. She'd been near panic from the gunfire and the knowledge that someone really wanted to kill her. Walker had only been trying to help. But he shouldn't have captured her as if he planned to shake reason into her.
Focusing all her anger on him, she mumbled her feelings.
Almost at the door, Walker turned to face her. "What did you say?"
There was no kindness in the man, she decided. No compassion. He was simply annoyed at her behavior. "I said." She glared at him. "Never touch me again, Captain."
Anger and confusion flickered in his eyes for only a moment before he bowed slightly. When their gaze met again, the cold formality of his stare was all she could see. They both knew she was overreacting and he was refusing to react at all.
"Don't worry, madam, I'll not make that mistake again."
CHAPTER 6
Walker stomped down the steps to the print shop. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd been so angry with himself. Grabbing Lacy and holding her off the ground wasn't the way to deal with a woman who'd just been frightened half to death. He wasn't even sure what he'd thought to accomplish other than to get her to stop shivering. Maybe he just wanted to let her know she was safe, and he thought she'd feel that way in his armis? Maybe he hoped to convince her she wasn't alone?
She'd rattled him so badly, he couldn't remember what his intentions were, but one thing was for sure, he hadn't accomplished any of those goals.
Far from being able to say he understood women, he had terrified Lacy when he'd hoped to calm her. Judging from the volume of her scream, he'd scared her into full panic. Half the town probably heard her yell.
"Add one more tiling about your wife that you don't know," he mumbled and moved through the darkened shop.
"Maybe she's just plain crazy." From their few times together he had little pr
oof otherwise.
Except the townsfolk seemed willing to come to her aid. A few had even issued veiled threats that he'd better work a little harder at being a good husband. With the exception of the church ladies, everyone he met today reminded him of what a wonderful wife he had. Even dirty old Mosely mumbled that he was keeping his good eye on Walker while he was in town.
Walker folded into one of the cane chairs pulled near an old potbellied stove that clanked while it heated. Remembering back, Lacy seemed more reluctant to talk to the churchwomen than they did to her. He almost had the feeling she thought about each word before she spoke, which made no sense. Lacy had no reason to be afraid of the old biddies. As editor of the paper, she would be in a much more powerful position than the crocheting group.
Walker leaned on the counter and watched the snow through the cracks in the boards where windows had been earlier. He was not sure he ever wanted a wife, but he was certain that the last thing he needed this month was a wife who hated him. Somehow he needed to stop doing everything wrong and do something right in her eyes.
The one-eared cat he'd seen the night before walked across the counter, brushing his tail against his hand. Absently, Walker patted his head. "I take it back. I don't hate cats. At least, they rank above snakes and rats. But don't
waste your time trying to get on my good side. I don't have
„
one.
The cat purred, as if happy to hear the news.
"Having a cat might even be better than having a wife, though I've never had either until now."
The cat moved on down the counter, looking bored with his rambling.
Walker collected an armful of firewood and headed back up the stairs. No sense putting off talking to Lacy. If he had any hope of understanding her, they had to start somewhere.
He wasn't surprised to find her huddled at the kitchen table with a notepad in one hand and a pencil in the other. A tiny pair of reading glasses perched on her nose. Blankets still wrapped around her shoulders like armor. Neither of them spoke as he dropped the firewood in the bin.
He couldn't understand why getting along with Lacy was so hard. Somewhere there had to be a middle ground. She needed him, and he'd been ordered to protect her. He'd always thought of himself as a reasonable man. He doubted one man who'd ever served under him would hesitate if asked to do so again. Dealing with a woman couldn't be that much different. He just needed to find a common place they could start from.
He reached into the storage drawer and pulled out a jar of milk and two apples, then sat down across the table from her. While she wrote, he poured them each a cup of milk and sliced the apples onto a plate. When she didn't look at him, he collected cheese and bread and added both to the meal spread between them. He was a man used to fending for himself and hoped she might accept the light supper as a peace offering.
Finally she stopped writing and propped the notebook between them. She'd printed the number twenty-four boldly on the first page.
He waited, guessing it safer to let her make the first move.
She removed her glasses and folded them into her pocket. Her brown eyes were huge in the lamp's light as she stared at him. "One month," she said calmly. "It took you three days to get here, and it will take you three days to return to your post. That leaves twenty-four."
He agreed, thinking this an odd start to a conversation, but at least they were communicating.
She ripped the first sheet from her pad and crumpled the page marked with the twenty-four. "Twenty-three now."
Walker didn't bother to look at the pad. He knew what would be written on the next page. He sliced a piece of bread and handed it to her, then lifted his cup of milk. 'To the countdown," he said.
She tapped her cup on his and drank.
They ate in silence. The kitchen warmed. She tried to put up an act, but he could sense her fright. He leaned back, allowing as much room between them as the small space permitted. "We really don't need the notebook, Lacy. Neither of us is likely to forget."
Dark walnut eyes met his. "I learned when I was a child moving around from job to job, sometimes only earning my keep, that I could endure anything if I knew it would end."
"I swear to you that in twenty-three days I'll ride out of here. This will end."
She nodded, accepting his word.
"I didn't mean to frighten you." A half-wit could have seen that what he did after the gunfire scared her more than the shooting. The woman needed to wear a sign that said, Touch at Your Own Peril.
She took a long breath. "I know."
"Maybe it would help if we understood each other a little better." He wasn't sure anything would help, but they couldn't go around yelling for three more weeks. "In prison camps during the war, there would always be a line, sometimes it was a trench, sometimes nothing more than a rope, but every soldier knew that was the point of no return. The kill line."
She raised an eyebrow in question.
"Any prisoner who crossed that point was shot, no questions, no warning. That's what I need with you. I need to know where I'm not to cross."
She watched him closely.
"Help me out a little, Lacy. We're living in such close quarters I need to know where the kill line is."
Her eyes closed. She shrank into the blanket. For a moment he thought she might not answer. If she didn't give him some guidelines, he guessed he'd just have to go around making her mad or angry until she finally turned that old Colt the sheriff gave her on him. At the rate he was going, it would only be a matter of hours.
When she spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper. "Before I was ten, I lived with my mother on a little farm a half mile outside of town. We mostly raised chickens and sold the eggs to anyone passing."
He leaned forward as she continued, "My mother's mother was from Hungary, and even though my mom was born in Louisiana, she didn't speak English until she was almost grown, so her words sounded foreign to most folks. My father left the day I was born."
She stopped as if expecting him to say something. When he didn't, she continued. "Because my mother talked different and dressed as her mother had, everyone in the county thought she was a witch, so no one visited with us much. She died when I was ten."
She relaxed a little and took a bite of apple. "I guess you got a right to know, folks have a way of dying around me. All my family's gone." She looked so serious, he almost laughed.
"So is mine, Lacy, but I don't consider it a curse following me. Tell me about how your mother talked."
She sat still, considering his request.
Walker waited.
"I saw nothing strange in the way she talked, but sometimes folks said some mean things to us. Once a man found blood in an egg we'd sold him. He said my mother had cursed him." Lacy glanced up, meeting Walker's eyes as she remembered. "I couldn't tell anything happened to him, except he got drunk and killed most of our chickens that night."
Walker imagined Lacy as a child trying to understand. "Did you mother press charges? I've been reading about the law, and I think she could have."
Lacy nodded. "The sheriff said since he didn't steal the hens, he couldn't be found guilty. We didn't know anyone else to turn to. The man went free, but we almost starved that winter."
She looked at him now with her big dark eyes liquid with unshed tears, and he fought the urge to touch her. He remembered the way he'd been drawn to her the first time he saw her, even before he knew she was his wife on paper.
Lacy lifted her chin slightly. "About me, my mother would have said, a nightmare breathes in the shadows of my world."
Without another word, she left the room.
An hour later Walker stood on the tiny back porch landing off the kitchen and smoked the last of his thin cigars. He tried to figure out what she'd been trying to tell him. He told himself he didn't like her, didn't care if he ever saw her again, but he'd never in his life felt so protective toward someone.
The icy wind whirled down the
alleyway from the livery to the north. Walker turned his collar up to the chill, feeling bad weather riding full speed toward Cedar Point. He was used to cold. Used to the weather. Even used to being shot at from time to time. But he wasn't sure he'd ever get used to Lacy. Her frightened stare had turned his gut over with a shovel. All the anger he'd felt toward her had vanished when he realized someone just beyond the window took aim at her. And when she'd told him the story of her mother, he wished he could have gone back in time and protected her.
After not eating enough to keep a bird alive, she went to bed, closing her bedroom door, though he'd told her not to. He'd even heard the scrape of what must have been her dresser, blocking him out.
Not that he would cross into her room after swearing he wouldn't. But she didn't trust him, and that bothered him even more than the fact that she was afraid of him.
"Captain?" Sheriff Riley's call rattled from the bottom of the stairs. "Your wife kick you out along with the cats?"
Walker smiled. He liked the old sheriff despite his meddlesome ways. Part of Riley still thought him a boy. "I didn't think she'd take much to my smoking in the house." Walker walked down the stairs.
Riley laughed. "Last I heard, she didn't take much to you at all. I just dropped by to see if she's killed you yet."
"Not yet," Walker answered, as if not sure he had long to wait. "We did manage to have supper without a fight."
Riley nodded. "That's some progress."
Walker didn't plan on standing in the cold and talking about his marital problems, so he changed the subject. "Anyone spot Zeb Whitaker?"
Riley shook his head. "I've had both my deputies walking the streets for over an hour. Abe said his feet are so cold his toes are falling off and rolling around in his boots. He couldn't find even one person who saw a big man riding out tonight. But that old buffalo hunter is around. I swear I can smell him."
"They found nothing," Walker said as a statement.
"Nothing," Riley echoed, "but a few tracks, already mostly covered up by new snow. Whoever stood between the buildings planned on doing some damage, if not murder. He had a horse waiting at the end of the alley and was gone before we could track him from the corner were he shot."
