“You know why I’m here,” Axel said, stripping off his hat and slapping it impatiently against his thigh. “I won’t waste your time or mine. I’ve come for the girl. Where’s Miss McCarthy?”
“In the back with the children, I believe. I’ll go get her.” Molly looked pointedly at a spot above Clete Wade’s eyes. “Is your head cold, Mr. Wade?”
With a sheepish look, Clete swept his hat off.
Molly gestured to the assortment of roughly dressed men, every one of them with a gun on his hip. “There’s no call for this, Bart. You tell these cowhands of yours to wait on the porch. And tell them the next time they come inside this house to knock first and to wipe their boots.” With that, she turned and marched down the hall toward the dining room.
Behind her, Clete Wade waved the men outside with a smirk. “Downright chilly in here, ain’t it?”
Lips pursed, Molly beckoned to Emily, then led her down the hall and into the parlor ahead of Bart Axel. Emily let out a relieved sigh. Luke was already there, down on one knee in front of the fireplace, adding another piece of wood to the fire. It was no accident he was in the parlor, she knew. However much she didn’t like him, she was grateful he was there. Bad as he was, he was on her side.
“Emily McCarthy,” Molly said, “this is our neighbor, Mr. Bartholomew Axel, the man you came from Chicago to meet. He owns the X-Bar-L ranch.”
A broad smile split Axel’s face. Both hands extended, he stepped forward. “Emily, my, my, my. I must say I’m pleased.” He sounded breathless. Though he was nearly sixty, he had the build of a younger man, thick and stocky with shoulders as big as hams and a face that was nearly all jaw. His iron gray hair was parted neatly down the middle and slicked back, like a Spaniard’s. “I had no idea you looked like this. Turn around, girl. Turn around. Let me see what I got to look forward to.” He pointed at the floor and stirred his finger in the air.
A hot flush slid down her neck. He made her feel cheap.
Humiliated, she stood still, making no move to do as he asked.
“I said turn around, girl.”
Luke straightened, a piece of firewood dangling in his hand.
“You think you’re buying a heifer, Axel?” he said, a dangerous glitter in the back of his eyes.
Axel glanced at the wood in Luke’s hand and bobbed his head to Emily. “No offense intended. Get your coat, girl, and let’s go. I’m taking you home.” There was authority in his voice, a kind of harnessed control that said he was used to being obeyed.
Disappointment swam through her. At Aldersgate they’d told her he was elegant looking. Why, he wasn’t at all. His pants bagged in the seat, he was bowlegged, and he reeked of whiskey. Worse, there was a meanness in his voice that set off her alarm signals.
And he’d called her “girl.”
Her mind reeled with thoughts shooting out in all directions. Not right. Her first meeting with her new husband-to-be, and he ordered her around like a servant. She wavered only an instant.
“Mr. Axel, I’m not going with you today. I think it’s best if I stay at New Hope with Miss Molly for a while.”
“What do you mean ‘for a while’?” The tone of his voice dropped.
“Coming here, I got to thinking and decided it would be better for both of us if we . . . if we got to know each other first.” Behind her, Luke let out a quiet hiss of relief. The heated flush in her cheeks slid down her neck. She felt foolish and embarrassed and eighteen years old.
“Nonsense. After the wedding you’ll get to know me. Very well, I expect.” Axel moved to stand in front of her, taking her hands in both of his. “Let me remind you, my dear, you are bought and paid for. Aldersgate has three hundred dollars of my money – ”
“The cost of two horses,” Luke cut in.
Bart’s lip curled in a sneer. “For you, maybe. Not the kind I buy. And where do you fit into this, Sullivan?” Axel fingered his mustache and scowled at Emily. “Or maybe I should ask you that. How did you manage to take up with him, anyway?”
She pulled her hands from his and darted a glance at Luke, but his face was granite hard, his mouth unsmiling. “After the stage was robbed, Mr. Sullivan brought me here,” she said.
“And I’m thinking real hard about that,” Bart said. “I’m also thinking I paid for a wife, and what I pay for, I get. Suppose you go put your coat on and come along. The preacher’s waiting.”
Emily swallowed and tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come. Deep down, a piece of her had wanted so desperately to believe Sullivan was wrong, that Bart Axel was really a gentleman, a man who would make her a fine husband. He’d just crushed that hope himself.
“You hear me, girl?”
“I hear you,” Luke said, “and you’re downright insulting to the lady. Maybe you’d better leave. Come back when you find some manners.”
The men’s eyes locked, as if measuring each other. Although Luke was half a head taller and broad shouldered, Axel outweighed him. Warily, they faced each other. The silence stretched, tension crackling between them like a smoldering fuse.
“Now, now, Bart,” Molly soothed, rushing in to snuff the fuse before it burst into flame. “Be reasonable. Emily hasn’t said no. She just needs a little time to get used to the idea of getting married, I reckon. I said she can work here with me for a while until she does.”
“I understood she was used to the idea. Who changed her mind? You, Molly?” He spun around to Luke and planted his legs apart. His mouth twisted. “Or have you been sniffin’ around her skirt?”
Molly shot her hand out and grabbed Luke’s forearm, restraining him. His hand had already balled into a fist.
Emily’s chin tipped up. “Mr. Axel, I don’t appreciate your remarks one bit,” she said coldly. “These people have been kind to me. I think you owe them an apology.”
Bart’s eyes narrowed. “You sound downright disrespectful, girl.”
Calmly, Molly continued. “No apologies needed, Emily. Bart, give her a little time. You’re just a few miles away. Come visit whenever you like. Let her learn for herself what kind of gentleman you are. Or have you forgotten how to court?”
Emily folded her hands tightly together to hide their trembling. The thought of courting this man made her shudder. Kiss him? With those dry lips and that stringy mustache? Never!
Luke moved behind her and rested a hand on her shoulder. His fingers squeezed a warning. “Why don’t you go back to the children, Miss McCarthy? I’ll see Mr. Axel out.”
Without a glance at anyone, Emily gathered her skirts and hurried from the parlor. Out in the hall, a rubbery weakness caught her behind the knees and she stumbled into the wall. Her breath broke on a quiet sob. Bart Axel was bad tempered and bad mannered, and she’d come that close to marrying him. If it hadn’t been for Luke, she would have.
The moment Emily disappeared into the hall, Luke reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. Counting off three hundred dollars, he stuffed them into Axel’s hand. “She owes you nothing now. If she decides to marry you, it’s because she wants to, not because she has to.”
Axel’s eyes jumped from the money in his palm to Sullivan’s face and back to the money again. “This is my own money you’re paying me with. You robbed the stage last night. And don’t think I don’t know why. You’re like a dog with a bone. I told you years ago your pa lost to me fair and square. It’s not my fault your old man couldn’t play poker.”
“Last month, just before we hanged him, your rustler friend, Clyde Willis, told me how you cheated my pa, said he helped you cheat a lot of men.”
“Watch it, Sullivan. People get shot for remarks like that.” Axel’s hand moved toward his gun.
“Stop it,” Molly cried, pushing between them. “I won’t have this in my house. There are children here, and this is Christmas Day.”
Bart stared pointedly at Luke’s hip. “Where’s your gun, Sullivan?”
The corners of Luke’s mouth dug in. An hour before – much to
his disgust – Molly had cornered him upstairs in his room, taken his guns, and locked them away until after Axel had come and gone. “Didn’t figure I needed one in my own home,” he drawled.
“This ain’t your home.”
“I decide that, and I say it is.” Molly stepped forward. “Now, if you’ve finished your business, I’d be obliged if you’d leave.
And don’t you come back here till you’ve cooled off, either.”
For a long minute, Axel didn’t move, staring from Molly to Luke. Cramming his hat on his head, he turned and strode out of the room and down the hall. He was almost at the front door when he caught sight of two boys in buckskin shirts and long black braids chasing into the kitchen. He spun around, his face a splotchy red.
“Molly, what are they doing here? Months ago I told you to get rid of them Crow brats,” Axel warned. “They ain’t orphans. They don’t belong here. New Hope is for whites.”
“They’re Chief Black Otter’s boys,” she said.
“I don’t care who they are. They’re still Injuns. And to think you’re teaching the red scum to read and write.”
“Bart, they’re little boys, and it’s the law now. It’s right that we teach them.”
“It’s wrong, I tell you. Mark my words, they’ll turn on you.” He moved closer and shook a finger in her face. “They ain’t fit to be around the rest of us. Chief or no chief, you get rid of them kids, or so help me I’ll close this place like that.” He snapped his fingers with the word.
Luke brushed Molly aside and stepped between them. “You should’ve quit when you were ahead, Bart. Molly invited you back when you cooled off, but now I’m telling you different. Don’t come back. You’re not welcome at New Hope. Not as long as I’m here.” He yanked the front door open. “Now get out before I throw you out.”
For a long moment, Bart said nothing. Then, touching his index finger to the brim of his hat, he gave a curt nod to Molly, then turned to Luke. “Sooner or later, someone’s going to shut you up, Sullivan. You’re a walking dead man,” he said, and went out the door.
“Bart – ” Molly moved as if to go after him.
“He’s drunk. Let him go.” Luke held her arm.
Bart stormed down the walk to the empty buggy. He snatched the reins to Clete’s horse from his hands. “Gimme your horse. I’m riding. You take the buggy back.”
He toed the stirrup and sat himself hard in the saddle.
“But where’s Miss Emily?” Clete blurted, then jumped out of the way as Bart gigged the spurs into the animal’s hide. The horse snorted in pain and frogged a few steps sideways, then broke into a run, its mane and tail streaming.
Clete jumped up into the buggy. “We got trouble coming,” he muttered to the waiting men. “Giddap!” With a hard slap of the reins, he sent the horse and its big-wheeled little carriage racing out of the courtyard after Axel.
Luke jammed his hands into his pockets and wondered what to say to Emily now. Her face was white, her lips trembling. The scene in the parlor with Axel had upset her. Maybe it did some good. She’d seen for herself what kind of man Bart was. And yet Luke sensed anything else he said about Axel would be unwelcome right then.
“What time is it, Mr. Sullivan?” Emily asked.
He glanced at the grandfather clock on the stair landing behind her. With a flash of intuition he knew why she asked. If he hadn’t pulled her off the stage last night, she’d be married by now.
“Four thirty,” he said quietly, and kept his face blank. He swallowed the surge of anger in his throat. Bart had wanted to slap her. Luke saw it and wondered if she did, too.
“I suppose you expect an apology from me?” Her mouth had pulled into a thin straight line.
The question surprised him. While he didn’t expect her to throw her arms around him with gratitude, a thank-you would have been nice. “No. I took the money and I took you, though I had good reasons for doing both.”
She looked up at him and said nothing.
“You’ve seen him – you still want to marry him?”
The blood drained from her face, leaving the creamy ivory skin with a chalky cast. Lips tight together, she shook her head and turned away.
Children clattered up and down the staircase, shouting and pushing each other, getting ready to put on a play. The two young Crow boys ran by, dressed in bathrobes as wise men now, dish towels wound around their heads for turbans. In the doorway, one of the cooks straightened a homemade halo on a little blond angel. A loud scraping of chairs and moving of furniture came from the dining room, signaling something important was about to happen.
“Miss McCarthy, the children have a Christmas pageant planned. Shall we go inside?”
She shook her head. “I don’t feel like it now.”
“Neither do I, but we’re going to. These kids have practiced weeks for this. We’re gonna watch and we’re gonna clap.” With a little bow he crooked his arm out to her. “Take it, or do I carry you in over my shoulder?”
She shot him a look full of knives, snatched his arm, and stamped down the hall beside him.
His lips twitched.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1884
At two o’clock the next afternoon, Emily answered the doorbell and opened the front door. Feet planted, Sheriff Sam Tucker and his deputy stood on the porch.
Tucker, a tall, board-straight man who looked as if he never smiled, pinned her with a cold look. “And you must be Miss McCarthy from Chicago.”
Emily nodded, her face stretched tight. “Come in, Sheriff.
I’m Emily McCarthy. Molly and Luke are in the parlor. She told me you and Deputy Howard would be out today.”
Molly had also warned her to watch every word she said. Sam Tucker was smart and knew the law better than some judges. He’d never met Luke. When Sam came to Repton, Luke was up in Lewistown working for Mr. Stuart.
In the parlor, Deputy Howard wrinkled his nose and pulled a small notebook and pencil from his shirt pocket.
Tucker looked hard at Luke. “So you’re Luke Sullivan, are you? To my mind, you don’t look like a man who’d hold up a stage and kidnap a woman passenger off it.”
Luke kept his face blank. Not a hint of anger showed in his expression. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Sheriff, I never took a thing in my life that wasn’t mine. As for Miss McCarthy here, she was running down the road as fast as she could go when I came along.”
“I see,” Tucker said, in a tone which implied he did not. “Is that what happened, Miss McCarthy?”
When Emily hesitated and swallowed, Molly broke in quickly.
“I raised Luke Sullivan from a boy, and I don’t raise outlaws,” she said. “He’s a fine man who does what’s right, though some people might disagree.”
Emily shifted, uncomfortably aware that Molly was looking at her when she said that.
“It’s a puzzle all right, Miss McCarthy, why any holdup man would rob a stage, kidnap a woman, then set her down later on a cold, empty road and leave her out there. That don’t make sense. How long were you waiting before Mr. Sullivan rode up?”
“Not very long.”
“Did you ask him for a ride?”
“I didn’t have to. He offered – sort of.”
Deputy Howard tongued the pencil point, sniffed, and wrote something in his notebook.
The sheriff watched him write, then turned back to Emily. “And where exactly did you say Mr. Sullivan found you?”
“I was standing in the middle of the road.”
“Thought you were running.”
“I stopped when Mr. Sullivan rode up.” Which was the truth. Surely they didn’t put people in jail for telling the truth. She twisted her hands together and frowned at Luke.
Tucker narrowed his eyes and studied them both. “Was the stagecoach nearby?”
Quickly, she wet her lips. “It was dark. I couldn’t see.”
“The inside of a cat ain’t that dark, Miss McCarthy,” Tucker said softly. “A stagecoach is bi
g and noisy, and that one had four horses. The man who kidnapped you – what did he look like?”
“I couldn’t tell that, either. He had a mask on.”
“And he never took it off – not once during the whole time?”
Tucker’s eyebrows flew up in pretended amazement. “Was he a big man, then? As big as Mr. Sullivan here, maybe?”
“It was too dark to see.”
Tucker nodded. “Did he talk like he was from around here, or was it too dark for you to tell that, either?”
Sullivan’s mouth twitched.
“Sheriff, I don’t know how people sound around here. I’m from Chicago.”
Tucker cleared his throat. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but did he . . . did he harm you?”
A hot flush crept up her neck and into her cheeks. “No, he was a gentleman.”
“Begging your pardon again, ma’am, he was a thief.”
“Well, somebody raised him right,” she snapped.
“I thought we was gonna arrest him,” Deputy Howard said.
Sheriff Tucker looked over. “What for? Sullivan’s got a ironclad alibi with both women backing his story, including his victim. Nobody was hurt in that robbery, and most of the money is still in the satchel – which strikes me as downright odd. A lawyer – even a dumb one – would make me look like a fool in court.”
“He’s a cool one all right,” Howard said, and sniffed again.
“A little too cool, if you ask me. Ain’t you got a handkerchief?” Howard straightened a leg and pulled a rumpled handkerchief from his pocket. “He’s polite and speaks good. Don’t know as I believe he was with Stuart’s Stranglers.”
“Believe it,” Tucker clipped. “I knew what he was – maybe still is – the minute I saw him. Stuart’s group prides themselves on not looking like what they are.”
The bare hedge of Caragana pea trees, crowded together on the other side of the road as a windbreak, rustled as they passed. Their frozen seedpods, hard as wood now, clacked together whenever the wind skirled. A gust of snow alongside rattled the Caraganas.
Howard rubbed his nose. “I hate these blasted pea trees.”
The Vigilante's Bride Page 5
