by Griggs, Winnie; Pleiter, Allie; Hale, Deborah; Nelson, Jessica
“Wait!” Her mother struggled to a standing position, and Mary tried not to cringe at how age and worries had stolen her mother’s strength. Perhaps loneliness would not kill her mother but rather another more obvious ailment. She swallowed hard at the thought.
Rose shuffled toward a trunk at the other side of the tepee. Bending, she opened it. “I have something for you.”
“I want you to come home with me. I need nothing else.”
“This is important.”
A small blond head popped up out of the trunk. “Hiya!”
Mary started. “What is that?”
“I’m a little girl.” The child clambered out of the trunk and gave Mary a decidedly mischievous smirk. “Are you going to be my mother?”
Startled, Mary groped for words. Finally, she said, “I’m not a mother to anyone.”
“Oh, but I need one. Just for a bit, you see, until I go home to my real mama.” The girl shot a cheeky, gap-toothed grin up at Rose, who reached down to stroke the girl’s head.
The movement snapped Mary from her shocked paralysis. “You have someone’s child? Do you know the penalty for such a thing?”
Rose met her accusation with a steady look. “She is in danger. You have a home apart from Lou now. You can hide her.”
“No.” She shook her head, feeling her braid swing against her back. “No, I can’t do it.”
“My daughter, I need you.” Her mother shuffled forward. “I cannot keep her much longer.”
Mary glanced at the child, who’d shifted her attention to the baskets and studiously went about picking one apart. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“My name’s Josie Silver,” the girl put in. “I live in Portland but my mama’s not home right now.”
“Where is she?” Mary asked. “How about your father?”
The girl lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know, and I don’t have a papa. I want to stay here.”
Mary glared at her mother. “Where did you find her?”
“Half-dead near Harney Lake, one week ago.”
She shuddered. “That’s horrible. You should’ve taken her to the authorities.”
Her mother grimaced. “I wasn’t supposed to be out there.”
“Mother.”
“Don’t berate me. You say you follow Jesus. A woman in town says He helps the poor and motherless. This child is that, and I—” Her mother peeked at the girl and lowered her voice. “I’m begging you to hide her until I send word it’s safe.”
“This makes no sense. How do you know she’s not safe?”
“Her guardian has posted a reward for her.”
“You said you didn’t know who she is? Return her.” Mary frowned. Where was the problem if someone had offered a reward? They already knew the child’s mother’s name. Confused and feeling lost in the maze of her mother’s reasoning, she backed toward the door flap.
“I know the guardian,” her mother said quietly. “He is not a man to be trifled with.”
Uncharacteristic impatience rushed through Mary. “Take care of the matter, then.” She had no room, no time, for a child.
I’m afraid.
The thought slammed into her. Tension hovered at the base of her skull, knotting and twining the muscles of her neck.
Her mother moved closer, bringing her once-beautiful features near. “I knew him when you were a child. In my past.”
Mary’s hand flew to her lips, but the movement didn’t stifle her gasp.
“Yes.” Her mother nodded. “Now you understand. He is a bad man, and I do not know why this child lay in the desert like a starved and wounded animal, but I will not return her. He will come looking, and it will be impossible for me to hide her from others.”
“I’ll take her,” Mary said through numb lips.
It was true she could take the child to her new home, but for how long? The girl couldn’t live with her indefinitely. The authorities must be contacted.
What would Lou say about a child near his secluded ranch, a haven he’d created for secret agents of the Bureau of Investigation and not for child rearing?
The little girl stared at her with big eyes, and she winced.
Why should she care what Lou thought? Yes, he employed her to keep his house, but she’d just bought her own home, her first step toward a more independent life. Determination straightened her backbone. If she was going to stop being afraid, to start living again, then she must put Lou and everything he represented behind her.
Could she do that, though?
Thank goodness he wouldn’t be home for several weeks. That gave her time to return Josie to her mother and persuade her own mother to come live with her. Because if Lou were home, he’d protest, and she didn’t know if she had the backbone to stand up for what she thought was right.
Chapter Two
An uncomfortable dryness at the roof of Lou’s mouth woke him. His tongue felt oversize, and his throat worked to swallow. He opened his eyes to find himself in the dark tones of his bedroom. A sense of claustrophobia wrapped galvanizing tentacles around him.
He tried to shove upward, but fierce pain in his chest snatched the breath from his lungs. Forced to lie still, he took shallow breaths while the pulsating daggers near his upper rib cage ebbed. Only thirty-six. It wasn’t fair to feel this way.
“Water,” he croaked.
Movement to his left, and then a firm hand slipped under his neck. Relieved, Lou allowed his head to tip forward so he could drink from the proffered cup.
The hand took the water away too quickly. After resting his head back on the pillow, Mary crossed his line of vision, disappeared, and then reappeared on his right side.
Hair pulled back in a bun, she might’ve passed for any Irish lass but for the duskiness of her skin and the high cheekbones that pronounced her native heritage. As usual, the sight of her stunned Lou for a moment.
His lids lowered and he watched as she bustled with his covers, stretching and straightening. Finally, she patted them, a satisfied look relaxing the line of her full lips. She turned her gaze to him.
Immediately he noted the strange look in her eyes. Normally she appeared serene, gentle, timid even. Today, however, wariness shadowed her gaze, something he’d only seen in her eyes when she dealt with others. Never with him.
He didn’t like that something was wrong with her. He would fix it, whatever it was. Frowning, he ignored the burn in his throat to speak. “Something’s wrong.”
Her eyelids flickered before she turned away. “You’re still thirsty.”
The water she brought him slid down easy, coating the soreness with cool relief. Cleared his head, too, so he could more closely examine the situation. Something was off. Mary’s evasion, that look on her face…
“Help me up,” he said.
She set the cup on his dresser and then returned, sitting at the edge of his bed, just out of reach. Her scent, a strange mix of sage and flowers, filled his senses and taunted him.
“I won’t help you sit up. You might tear your stitches,” she replied. Her pronunciation was technically correct, but an exotic flavor rounded each of her words, courtesy of her trilingual skills.
“How long have I been out?”
“You left the ranch a little less than a week ago. I believe two days into your assignment you were shot and then taken to the hospital. They removed the bullet and telegrammed James.”
Her mention of his ranch hand and longtime friend failed to comfort.
“Did they catch the shooter?”
“No one has told me much. James picked you up from the hospital and brought you here. He drove to town this morning to find supplies to keep your wound clean, but he should be back this afternoon.” Her brow lined. “You have been going in and out of consciousness for days now. How do you feel?”
Confused. He felt confused and bothered.
“Sore,” he answered shortly. “Where’s my M&P?” His Smith & Wesson military and police revolver had kept him company
for almost twenty years. He didn’t plan on losing it now.
The lines in her forehead deepened. “I put it somewhere safe.”
He pushed up, purpose fueling his movement. His vision blackened for a moment as his upper body throbbed with pain, but he ignored the sensation.
“Bring it to me,” he managed to say.
“You can’t move like that.” Mary leaned over him, her features drawn with worry. “You almost died. Someone tried to kill you, and that’s why the bureau decided it was best to get you here, to the safe house. You are on temporary leave until you recover.”
Lou closed his eyes and waited for the nausea and torturous aches in his body to pass. This couldn’t be happening. He needed his job. The last place he wanted to be stuck at was the ranch.
“Let me give you some pain medication.” Mary’s voice drifted over him.
“No,” he said, voice rough. “Not yet. This place isn’t safe.”
“Mendez is dead.”
Lou forced his eyes to open when what he wanted more than anything was to sleep. “He might’ve passed our location on to one of his buddies.”
Twelve years ago, Mary had been kidnapped by a man called Mendez. She’d been his first kidnapping and, thankfully, had been rescued by government agent Striker, aka Lou’s friend Trevor, before Mendez could sell her.
Unfortunately, her rescue hadn’t stopped Mendez from becoming a notorious slave trader, known for trafficking women down to Mexico.
Trevor spent the next ten years as a shadow, tracking Mendez and rescuing what women he could while hiding behind his nickname, Striker. And Mendez had developed an obsession to pay Striker back for foiling his moneymaking kidnapping schemes. Out of fear, and knowing Mendez wanted to use Mary to draw Striker out from his anonymity, she’d been hiding on this ranch until two Christmases ago, when Mendez had found her again. He’d attempted to kidnap Mary but had accidentally taken Lou’s niece, Gracie, instead.
Thanks to Gracie’s ingenuity, she’d escaped and had been found by Trevor. Mendez and his men had died of poisoning unrelated to their kidnapping plans, but Lou couldn’t shake the feeling this place wasn’t safe anymore. He didn’t want Mary to see the depth of his worry, though. She had enough burdens to carry.
Feeling exhausted yet unwilling to surrender consciousness, he met her gaze. “Trevor and I buried Mendez. You don’t have to worry about him. But our cover is gone….” He paused for breath. He’d been shot before, stabbed, even, but never had he felt this tired.
“Take the medicine.” A note of stubborn finality crept into her voice. “I will speak with you about this later.”
Lou blinked hard against the tide of sleep pulling his lids closed. Mary wavered in front of him, holding out some foul-smelling concoction. She pressed the spoon against his lips, and he grabbed her wrist. Keeping his gaze pinned on hers, he swallowed but didn’t let go of the delicate bones beneath his fingers.
Her eyes widened, and a blush spread across her face at his touch. She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip.
“Thank…you.” He struggled to speak without slurring, to give her a reassuring smile.
“You shouldn’t talk right now.” She lifted her other hand to his brow, smoothing his hair with warm, firm fingers. “I hear the wagon. James will be in at any minute.”
It seemed only a second to Lou until he heard his ranch hand and old friend James in the room. “Got him laudanum. Some Oregon grape root, too.”
Mary rose and disappeared from Lou’s view. He stifled the urge to shout and demand someone help him up from this bothersome bed. They came back, James smirking down at him.
“Had to go and get yourself shot, boss?” He swiped the hat off his head and rubbed the gnarled mass of hair above his ears. “Leave us with all the ranch work while you catch them bootleggers, and now look at ya.”
“Can you watch him for me?”
“I don’t need watching,” Lou told Mary crossly, annoyance temporarily strengthening him. “Get a message to Hayworth that I need to be moved. Maybe to headquarters.” Surely his superior would approve a move under the circumstances.
James bent over him and squinted. “You sayin’ the ranch ain’t safe?”
“Not with me here. These people mean business. If Mendez found us, chances are someone else…will…too.” Lou struggled for breath, hating the weakness of his body. If he’d just gone with his gut instead of standing in the road like a yellow-bellied pansy, he might be flushing out criminals at this very moment.
Now he was trapped here. Forced to see Mary every day, when every second just looking at her made him remember more and more of his past. It didn’t used to be this way. He didn’t like how things had changed.
He aimed to get out of here before things spiraled out of control.
“Let us take care of you.” Mary swished over, bringing medicine with her. “Here, gently now.”
Lou took the medicine, unable to fight the droop of his lids any longer. Mary’s and James’ voices became distant murmurs, then faded away.
He wanted sleep, but instead images from the past flashed through him. His mother and father. His brother with his wife. His niece, Gracie.
And Abby.
Sarah had named Abigail after her mother. He moaned, thrashing his head, willing the images to leave. To stop assaulting him.
His chest burned, but he couldn’t tell if it was the wound or his heart.
More laudanum. That was what he needed.
“Mary,” he whispered.
Nothing.
“Mary.” He tried again, forcing his windpipe to push out more air. A creak followed his plea, but he didn’t smell her.
An odd sound cut through the air. Like a…giggle?
He cocked an eye open. With the medicine swimming through his blood, the room tilted to the side. The doorway wavered, and for a second he thought he saw a thatch of blond hair beneath the doorknob.
“Abby,” he breathed. A hard rush of pain splintered through his chest, cutting off his air and making his eyes burn. Just one more look. After all these years, he wanted to see her one more time.
He waited. A second later the door creaked again, and Abby poked her head through. She shot him a wide smile that showed off teeth with a gap between them the size of Texas. Had he missed her losing teeth, then? It seemed she’d just started cutting them.
Sarah said she ate everything in sight. A smile curled up inside Lou like a soft blanket over his heart. “Abby, come here. Give Daddy a hug.”
Her giggle sprinkled through the air, light and fuzzy, followed by a sweet rush of darkness that took him to a warm and gentle place.
*
Lou Riley was seeing dead people.
Unable to shake the morbid thought, he opened his eyes. Bright morning sun poured through the window, highlighting the suspiciously clean lines of his room. Mary had been in again, dusting and cleaning. He groaned, wincing as a nasty throb of pain jolted through his temples.
His chest felt better, though. He tried shifting in the bed. His bandages crinkled with the movement, and a definite soreness invaded his muscles. No fever, no infection, which was a good thing. He’d be glad to discontinue this medicine, glad to get his head turned straight, glad to put an end to the dreams plaguing his sleep.
“There you are, sleepyhead.” Mary floated into the room, her hair a shiny ebony in the morning light. Her features appeared smooth and even, a hint of worry not evident. He must be doing great.
Despite his aches, he grinned at her. “Right where I’ve been the past week.”
“Oh, not that long.” Blushing in response to his flirtatious smile, she set a tray on the bed.
Lou sniffed the air. “Pancakes?” he asked hopefully.
“Yep.”
He took a closer look. “Is that a…rattler?” He glanced at Mary. The burnished rose color of her cheeks deepened.
“I was experimenting with shapes. A little artistic license. I’m not sure how that was p
laced on the tray.” She frowned and didn’t meet his eyes.
Interesting. He took the plate she held out to him and loaded up. Days of no food had made him famished. His stomach hurt just looking at it all. But that snake… A frown took possession of his mouth.
He settled against his pillow, carefully moving the plate to his lap. “You know, my mom used to make me and my brother animal-shaped pancakes.”
“Really?” Mary fiddled with the sheets on the bed.
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded, never taking his gaze from her face. An uneasy suspicion was taking root. “Moms do it for kids all the time.”
“Not all mothers,” she interjected.
“Creative moms.” He amended the sentence with a flourish of his fork. “Speaking of kids, you might want to lighten my laudanum dosage. I’ve been seeing things.”
Mary moved toward the dresser, her back to him. For a moment, Lou was distracted by the waves of hair that fell like a silk waterfall against her shoulders. He’d forgotten how dark her hair was, thick, and blacker than a sky bereft of stars.
In all their years of knowing each other, he didn’t think he’d ever touched her hair before. In fact, he made certain not to unnecessarily touch her. To give her space and to help her feel safe. His general policy regarding women involved distance. Women were lovely creatures, interesting, a tad difficult, but getting mixed up with a woman took more stamina than Lou was inclined to expend.
Relationships meant pain. He’d learned that early on.
Clenching and unclenching his fingers, he willed the itch to touch Mary to leave.
“What have you been seeing?” she finally asked.
He studied her, noting the stiffness in her shoulders. “Things that shouldn’t be here.”
“Oh?” She pivoted toward him.
The look of obstinacy on her face might’ve made him laugh if he didn’t realize it meant something he wouldn’t like.
“A kid,” he said flatly.
She didn’t respond at first. Then a serene mask settled over her face. Her armor. Seeing it confirmed his suspicion that she was hiding something. A lead weight settled in his belly, feeling almost like disappointment.
“What’s going on?”
