by Nerys Leigh
And deep down, foolish as she knew it was, she couldn’t quite give up the notion that Amy was right about Zach, and that he would accept her child.
She shook her head at herself as she walked along the corridor upstairs. That was a ridiculous idea and there was no point in even thinking about it.
Numbered brass plaques adorned each door along the hallway. She stopped outside the fourth and knocked. When there was no answer, she opened the door a little and peered inside.
“Rebecca?”
No lamps were lit in the room, making it too dark to see anything other than vague outlines of furniture.
“Rebecca, are you sleeping?” She took a step inside, peering into the darkness. “It’s Jo. Rufus said you needed help.”
A hand clamped around her wrist, yanking her into the room. Before she could react, she was shoved onto her face on the bed. The door slammed shut and a weight landed on top of her.
Hot breath crawled over the back of her neck. “Bet you thought you’d never see me again, didn’t you?”
Heart thundering, she pushed upwards and opened her mouth to scream. A rag was stuffed in, catching the sound before it emerged. She tried to spit it out but was pushed into the mattress again. Her arms were pulled behind her and a rough rope wound around her wrists.
She squirmed against her captor, struggling to break free. All her breath left her lungs when a knee thrust into her back, pushing her down.
“Keep struggling, whore,” Clay Dunbar hissed into her ear. “Just means I get to hurt you more.”
With her hands bound behind her, she was jerked to a seated position. A lamp flared and she squinted into his leering face.
“You got no friends here. Rufus gave you to me, and once I’m finished with you, you’ll have no choice but to work as the whore you are. And then I’ll get to have you whenever...”
His words ended in an oof and he stumbled backwards, clutching at his crotch.
Jo lowered her foot, leaped up from the bed, and ran for the door.
Dunbar barrelled into her, throwing her back onto the bed and landing on top of her.
“You’re gonna pay for that.”
~ ~ ~
The coin spun into the air, catching the light from the boarding house windows as it flipped over and over before landing in Zach’s palm, where it immediately vanished. Whistling a tune he didn’t know the name of, he pulled it from his pocket and started the routine all over again. He could do the trick without even thinking about it, but it didn’t hurt to practise.
He imagined the joyful laughter of children as he entertained them with his ‘magic’ skills, begging him to show them again. His children. His and Jo’s.
As he neared the saloon, a noise from one of the upstairs windows drew his attention. Something smashed in one of the rooms that faced the street, accompanied by a man’s shout. Thin curtains covered the window, but a silhouette came into view briefly and then moved away.
Zach’s coin dropped, unheeded, to the ground.
It could have been any of the women who worked there in that room, but he knew that shape better than any in the world.
He took the steps in front of the saloon in a single bound and burst in through the doors. Rufus was behind the bar, Jo nowhere in sight. Some of the men around the room were on their feet, looking towards the staircase.
Zach sprinted for the stairs, taking them three at a time. He heard a shout from behind him but ignored it. At the top of the staircase he turned towards the front of the building.
The door to the room he’d seen Jo in was locked, but he threw his shoulder into it, not even feeling the pain as it burst inwards.
Inside, he stumbled to a halt.
Jo stood in the centre of the room, breathing heavily. Swelling marred her cheek and her wrists were reddened and grazed. A thin, knotted rope lay on the bed, its ends frayed as if it had been cut.
She held a revolver, the trembling barrel aimed more or less at Clay Dunbar where he lay on the floor. Blood seeped from a wound on his forehead, one eye was swelling, and he was curled into a ball, whimpering in pain. One hand was clutched around his upper arm, blood welling from between his fingers.
Zach walked slowly up to her, his boots crunching on the shattered remains of what appeared to be the jug from the washstand.
“Jo?”
She didn’t look at him. He wasn’t even sure she was aware of his presence.
“Jo?” he repeated softly.
“She’s a lunatic,” Dunbar groaned from the floor. “Attacked me for no reason.”
Zach had an overwhelming desire to drive his foot into the man’s face. He kept his focus on Jo. “Are you all right?”
Her eyes finally flicked to him for a split second before returning to Dunbar. She nodded a little.
“Okay, good. Are you going to shoot him?”
Her neck bobbed in a swallow. After a long pause, she shook her head.
“Okay.” Keeping his movements slow, he gently reached towards the gun. “You can let this go then.”
When she allowed him to take it from her shaking hands, he breathed out.
He looked back at the door at the sound of footsteps in the corridor. Rufus appeared at the door.
Jo finally moved her attention from Dunbar. Without a word, she walked up to Rufus and slapped him twice, hard enough that his head whipped round. He raised a hand to his face.
More footsteps signalled the arrival of a group of the men from downstairs, led by Hiram Henry.
“What’s going on in here?” Hiram’s eyes went from Jo to the man still lying on the floor. “What happened?”
Jo retreated to Zach’s side and he put his arm around her.
“She attacked me,” Dunbar whined, sitting up with a grimace. “I paid for her, fair and square, and she agreed to it. Ain’t my fault she changed her mind.”
Hiram looked at Jo. “He telling the truth?”
Her eyes flicked from Rufus to Hiram and back again. Rufus dropped his hand to his side, holding her gaze.
“No,” she said, “it’s not true. I was tricked into coming up here. He tried to force himself on me.”
With a growl, Hiram advanced across the room, followed by the rest of the men.
Dunbar scrambled to his feet and backed away. “Rufus, tell them!”
Hiram grabbed the front of his shirt.
“Rufus!”
As the men crowded around Dunbar, Rufus turned and walked out.
“Rufus!”
Zach led Jo from the room. When they got into the hallway, Solomon was at the top of the stairs, heading in their direction.
Zach’s conscience warred with his anger.
His conscience won. Just.
“Better go fetch Marshal Cade, unless you want to be cleaning up a dead body in there,” he said to Solomon as they passed. “Don’t feel you have to hurry though.”
~ ~ ~
When they reached the hotel, Zach took Jo straight up to her room.
Mrs. Sanchez appeared at the door before they’d even sat down and hustled inside to light a lamp. “Is there anything I can do? Should I fetch Doctor Wilson?”
He glanced at Jo and she shook her head.
“Could you ask Javier to close up early?” he said to Mrs. Sanchez.
“Sí, of course. Call me if you need anything at all.”
“Thanks, Mrs. S.”
He was mildly surprised when she pulled the door closed as she left, but then maybe he shouldn’t have been. Despite her insistence on turning up when he least wanted her to, she knew his heart.
Jo walked over to the bed and he followed, sitting and wrapping one arm around her.
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “You were right about that place.” They were the first words she’d spoken since the saloon.
“I wish I hadn’t been.” He lifted her hand, frowning at the marks around her wrist. “He tied you up.” Just saying the words made him sick to his stomach.
“I’ve been carrying my knife since the last time, so I was able to get free. And he didn’t bind my feet. If he had...”
“If he had, I would have saved you. You just beat me to it, is all.” He didn’t want her to dwell for one second on what might have happened.
She lifted her head to look at him. “You came for me.”
“Of course I came for you. I always will.”
Squeezing her eyes closed, she covered her face with her hands and rolled onto her side, curling in on herself.
He lay behind her and wrapped himself around her trembling body, trying to cover as much of her as possible. As if he could form a shield between her and the rest of the world.
“Please don’t leave,” she whispered.
He pressed his face into her hair and held her tight.
“Never.”
Chapter 35
The sound of birdsong woke Jo from one of the best nights’ sleep she ever remembered.
After the events of the previous evening and the fact that she now no longer had a way to make money, it was unexpected how completely rested and refreshed she felt. And somehow free.
Smiling, she stretched beneath the blanket draped over her, only then noticing that she was lying on top of the bedcovers, still fully clothed. Her smile grew as she recalled lying in Zach’s embrace the night before. Nothing had ever felt so good as the way he had cocooned her in his arms, an unspoken promise to do all he could to keep her safe. If she had let him, he would have.
He would have kept her away from the saloon. She would never have met Clay Dunbar, wouldn’t have been in that room, fighting to free herself, stabbing his arm, grabbing the jug from the washstand and slamming it into his face...
Stop it! Squeezing her eyes shut, she forced away the flow of memories threatening to overwhelm her and instead whispered, “Thank You for saving me.”
A measure of peace returned and she relaxed, pulling the blanket draped over her tighter around her shoulders. She must have fallen asleep the night before and Zach had tucked it over her before he left.
Rolling over, she gathered the pillow beside her to her face and took a deep breath of his lingering scent. Then she snuggled her head into it, wrapping it in her arms. It wasn’t as good as the real thing, but it was still nice.
A knock at the door invaded the pleasant quiet, but she was too comfortable to get up. So she closed her eyes again and called, “Come in.”
She heard the door open and close. After a few seconds she opened one eye to see Zach standing just inside the room, a tray in his hands and amusement on his face. She swivelled her eye down to the pillow she was hugging because it smelled like him.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Morning,” she echoed.
“Enjoying my pillow?”
“Technically, it’s my pillow. You just happened to have been lying on it.”
“Is that why you’re hugging it?”
She burrowed further into the pillow’s soft depths. “I prefer to not answer that question.”
Chuckling softly, he placed the tray onto her nightstand and leaned down to kiss her forehead before sitting on the edge of the bed.
He touched his fingertips to her cheek. “How’s your face feeling? It looks like the swelling’s gone down. Interesting coloured bruise though.”
She opened and closed her mouth a few times then gingerly prodded at her wound. “It aches a bit, but it’s not too bad. Pretty sure I hit him harder than he hit me.”
“That’s my girl.”
A shiver of delight fluttered through her stomach at being called his girl. She caught hold of his hand and snuggled it beneath her chin, closing her eye again. “What time did you leave last night?”
He cleared his throat. “About twenty minutes ago.”
Her eyes snapped open.
“I think I must have fallen asleep not long after you did,” he said, looking awkward. “I didn’t wake up until this morning.”
So that was why she’d slept so well. “I’m surprised Mrs. Sanchez didn’t come and remove you. Did she know?”
“She did when I showed up in the kitchen wearing the same rumpled clothes as last night.” He patted his hotel uniform with his free hand. “I made sure she understood that all we did was sleep.”
“And what did she say?”
“‘Help yourself to breakfast and take Josephine some up too.’ I think she understood you needed to not be alone last night.”
He was right, only she’d needed more than to not be alone. She’d needed him.
She kissed his fingers. “Thank you for staying.”
He smiled a little. “Pretty sure I needed to be here as much as you needed me to not leave. Are you hungry?”
She sighed and stretched. “Mmm.” When she pushed herself to a seated position, however, the familiar nausea rose. “But first, I need to use the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”
She threw back the blanket and rushed out, only just making it to the lavatory in time. That was one benefit to having slept in her clothes. She felt much better by the time she got back to her room, however, and happily took the plate of pastries Zach had brought for her.
She settled back onto the bed, propped up against the pillows, and patted the space beside her. Zach’s eyes opened wide and he glanced at the door.
“We spent all night here,” she said in a theatrical whisper, glancing around as if in the midst of some clandestine plot, “I think we can risk breakfast too.”
“You’re a bad influence on me.” His smile said he didn’t mind in the slightest.
He kicked his shoes off, stretched out his long legs beside hers, and held his hand out to her.
She knitted her fingers with his. “Could I say the blessing?” she said, taking herself by surprise. Other than when she’d invited Jesus into her life, she hadn’t prayed out loud.
His answering smile was filled with warmth. “I’d like that.”
Closing her eyes, she had to remind herself that she was speaking to God, not Zach. It helped with the nerves.
“Dear Father, I have a lot to thank You for this morning. I thank You for this food we’re about to eat, and for Mrs. Sanchez and her understanding about last night. Thank You for this place, that I have a bed and food and friends. Thank You for looking after me last night, that I wasn’t badly hurt, and that Hiram and the others helped me.” She squeezed the hand in hers. “And thank You most of all for Zach, for his kindness and generosity and bravery. I don’t know what I’d do without him. Thank You for bringing me such a wonderful friend. In the Name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.”
Zach was quiet for a few seconds after she’d finished praying, his thumb rubbing soft circles on the back of her hand.
“Are we more than just friends?” he said, his eyes on their entwined fingers.
She wanted to be more, so much more, but what could she do? “Well, I don’t generally kiss my friends the way I kiss you,” she said, trying for levity.
A small smile tugged at his lips. “You know what I mean.”
She followed his gaze to their hands. She would have held onto him forever, if she could. “Can’t friends be enough for now?”
His eyes moved to hers and he leaned forward to brush a kiss across her forehead. “For now.” A sly smile crept onto his face. “If we weren’t sitting on your bed, I’d kiss you properly.”
She gave him her most innocent smile in return. “If we weren’t sitting on my bed, I’d kiss you right back. And then some.”
Laughing, he brought her hand to his lips, kissed the back, and released it. She missed his touch immediately.
“I was thinking, since it’s Saturday and I don’t have to work here, maybe we could take a picnic to the lake.” He bit into one of his pastries. “I figure we could both do with getting out of town for a few hours.”
“Don’t you have to work for your father today?” Her eyes widened as she took her first bite and her mouth filled with sweetness. “This is deliciou
s. What are these?”
“They’re called fruta de sartén. They’re not really meant for breakfast, but who doesn’t need dessert for breakfast every now and then?”
“No complaints here.” She took another large bite. Was it too early in her pregnancy to assume she was eating for two?
“I thought I’d go to the livery this morning and come back around midday and we could take the picnic out for lunch. Then I’ll go back to the livery later.”
“Your father won’t mind?”
“No. He can be nice when he wants to.”
She had to clamp her full mouth closed as she laughed. “You’re lucky to have him.”
“Yeah, I know.” He smiled. “Of course, he’s lucky to have me too.”
~ ~ ~
After Zach left to go to the livery, Jo bathed, dressed, and headed for the saloon.
She hadn’t told Zach she was going. He would have tried to stop her, or at the very least insisted on going with her, and she needed to do this alone. She was also a little afraid that if he knew that Rufus had sold her to Dunbar, he would do something that would get him hurt or thrown into jail. She couldn’t risk that.
Fear nipped at her gut as she walked up the steps in front of the building, but she ignored it. Not giving in to fear was one of the first things she’d learned on the streets of New York. It had saved her more than once, including the previous night when Dunbar had her tied up in that room. Staying calm and thinking clearly had enabled her to get free.
Solomon looked surprised when she walked in. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you in here again.”
“I’m not here to work,” she replied. “I just came to talk to Rufus.”
“I didn’t know what was going to happen.” He glanced across the room at the staircase. “If I’d known, I would have stopped it. I swear.”
