Promises Reveal

by Sarah McCarty

  Taking a chance on Cougar being on the ridge, he ducked to the right, away from Belle, bringing up the rifle as he did. Cougar’s shot didn’t come, but Casey’s did. There was a bright flash and a bullet slammed into his side. Brad gritted his teeth, holding his stand through sheer determination. The rifle fired. Once, twice. Repeaters were a wonderful invention, allowing a lot of shots in a short amount of time. Enough to send Casey riding for cover. Enough to buy him time.

  Brad whistled in two short blasts. Belle came over immediately, sidestepping and tossing her head, her tail swishing nervously, but she came. There was no pain, but Brad knew from his tight respirations that it was just a matter of time. Pressing his hand to his side, he reached for the horse. Belle snorted at the smell of fresh blood and shied away. “Easy girl.”

  He could hear Casey riding away. He didn’t hear Cougar approaching. Which only meant one thing. Cougar hadn’t found Casey before he’d moved the meet, and while he was likely tracking the shots right now, until he arrived Brad was on his own.

  “C’mere, Belle. We need to get home.”

  Back to Evie and a whole host of explanations that would require more lies than he could likely spin about the shape he’d be in when he got there. He looked at his hand, covered in blood. Especially if he kept bleeding like this.

  The pain hit just as he was swinging up into the saddle, exploding through him with the same power of the shot. Then came the dizziness, and black spots filled his vision, blocking the green of the grass and the blue of the sky. He blinked. Blue sky? Shit, he was slipping.

  Closing his eyes, he forced himself up and over, his midsection slamming into the saddle. Blinding pain clawed at his gut. Nausea hit just as hard as the next wave of agony. He retched, hoping like hell he missed the saddle. Gut shot. The horror of it was almost enough to have him letting go right there.

  Hell of a way to end things. I expected more of a show.

  “Get me home, Belle.”

  She started walking. He looped the reins around the saddle horn. Blood soaked his pants. His skin felt cold and clammy and sweat burned his eyes. Even if he hadn’t seen Casey leave the meeting place, Cougar would have heard the shot. He’d be here soon. Unless Casey or one of his cohorts had gotten the drop on him. Hard to believe: Cougar was good. Casey wasn’t exactly a slackard, however, and a few of the men who rode with him were rats in disguise. The thought gnawed at him. He couldn’t go back to town without knowing. A man owed his friend better. Brad turned Belle up the ridge. “Let’s go find Cougar, darling.”

  Any help would be appreciated. Cougar doesn’t deserve to die out here.

  There wasn’t an answer. Then again, he wasn’t expecting one. It was just him and Belle and a whole lot of wilderness to cover. Perfect.

  FIVE MINUTES LATER he was barely conscious, and he couldn’t find any evidence of Cougar, or even that he’d been in the vicinity. Brad turned Belle down toward the valley. With every step he was thrown forward. Pain, so familiar as to be almost family, ground on his awareness, becoming the sum of his existence. Leaning back would have eased the motion. Leaning back would upset the tenuous grip he had on the saddle. Leaning back wasn’t an option.

  Brad unwound the rope from the side of the saddle. He wasn’t going to make it back under his own power, and he wanted to make it. Not only to get revenge on Casey, but also to see Evie one more time. She was the only responsibility he’d ever had. And truth was, he wasn’t ready to be shed of her yet.

  You gave her to me, so you can just keep me alive until I get back to her.

  He tied himself to the saddle. Come hell or high water he would make it home. Casey might have planned for him to die out here, but he wasn’t in a mood to oblige. Patting Belle on the shoulder, no longer fighting the pain and weakness, just letting it roll over him, Brad closed his eyes. “Get us home, Belle.”

  He didn’t know how long he rode like that. One minute slowed to the next as hot liquid filled his boot and drained his strength. He built a picture of Evie in his mind, eyes flashing, mouth set, temper flaring, and held on to it. As a talisman, he couldn’t find better. Evie had the tenacity of a badger.

  “Rev!”

  The shout didn’t register at first. After the third shout, he lifted his head, able to make out the shadowy form of a rider coming hard. He titled his rifle and hooked his finger on the trigger.

  The weapon was yanked out of his hand.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Cougar. “You’re a little late to the party,” he rasped.

  “It would’ve helped if you hadn’t moved the damn thing.” Steel flashed in his field of vision. The rope binding his hands around the horn snapped. “How bad is it?”

  “Think I’m gut shot.”

  “Only think?” Cougar’s deep drawl was deceptively calm.

  “I wasn’t going to strip down in the middle of battle to check.”

  There was the sound of material parting under a metal blade. Air streamed into the wound like acid.

  “Goddamn!” He found his breath. “How’s it look?”

  Very carefully the material settled back over the wound. “Like we need to get you to Doc.”

  Brad grunted as his horse changed direction and speed. As soon as he found the rhythm, he glanced over at Cougar.

  “Do me a favor and save your funeral voice for when I actually have one.”

  Not a muscle twitched in the other man’s expression. “Done.”

  Shit. That was no comfort.

  Fifteen

  “HE WAS DEPENDING on you, wasn’t he?” Evie asked Cougar.

  Cougar didn’t move, just stood there in the foyer, head up, shoulders back. “Yes.”

  She wished he’d prevaricated, hedged, defended himself, provided her with an outlet for the cauldron of emotion boiling inside her. Brad was upstairs in bed, unconscious, feverish from his wound and there wasn’t anything she could do but wait and see if he woke up. She clutched the pile of dirty sheets to her chest. “You were supposed to protect him.”

  “I know.”

  “He could die.”

  “Doc said he should be fine.”

  “If he doesn’t get an infection.” It was a very big if, much bigger than the innocuous-looking hole in his stomach that had caused so much trouble.

  “The Rev’s a tough man. No bullet’s going to take him down.” It scared her witless that she didn’t know if Brad was tough enough to survive this, but she did want to know who had hurt him. Her nails bit into her arms, the stinging pain centering her control. “Who was the coward? Who shot him?”

  Cougar shifted his hat in his hand. His mouth flattened to a thin line. “I didn’t get there in time to see.”

  “Get to where?”

  “To where they had moved the meeting.”

  “A meeting implies that he knew who he was meeting.”

  “He did.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  Cougar didn’t look away, just kept her gaze with that impassive expression that gave her nothing to play off. “Pretty much.”

  Her nails cut deeper. “How could you agree to that?”

  He spun his hat in a half circle. The first break in his calm that she’d seen since he’d walked in the door fifteen minutes before. “Your husband has a mind of his own.”

  Cougar wasn’t a man to go into anything blind. Only one thing could make him do something so unorthodox. “He called in a favor, didn’t he?”

  Cougar didn’t answer. Evie didn’t press. Mainly because it wouldn’t do any good. Cougar’s sense of honor went bone deep. He wouldn’t betray Brad’s confidence. Period.

  “So until he regains consciousness, we won’t even know who did this to him?”

  Cougar settled his black hat back on his head, angling the brim down over his eyes. And that fast, civilization seemed to leave him.

  “We’ll know.”

  “How?”

  After a quick knock, the front door opened. Clint stepped halfway into t
he room. “You about ready, Cougar?”

  “Just about.” Cougar reached out. The breadth of his palm took up the entirety of her peripheral vision. The tips of his fingers touched her temple before grazing down her cheek. Inside, the wall she’d built against the fear that Brad would die groaned beneath the understanding contained in his touch. “You stay strong.”

  Swallowing hard, she ducked his gaze. Not breaking down to a blubbering mess of emotion was taking the little bit of her strength left over from caring for Brad. “I will.”

  “Asa and Jackson are going to be watching the house. Nothing can get past those two, so don’t be worrying about anything.” She nodded. His middle finger glided along the underside of her jaw. When it reached the point of her chin, he pressed up. Evie had no choice but to meet Cougar’s gaze, to see the understanding and purpose there.

  “I promise you, the man who did this will not walk away from the repercussions.”

  She knew she should tell Cougar that it wasn’t necessary. She knew she should keep him home, away from danger, so he could live to see his child born, but she wasn’t that good. All that filled her mind was the knowledge that whoever had done this to Brad was still out there. And that was intolerable. “Thank you.”

  She glanced over at Clint, thinking of Jenna, Gray, and Bri. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “It’s my middle name.”

  Cougar dropped his hand to the hilt of his knife. She stared at his lean fingers wrapped around the wooden handle and remembered how that same hand had cradled the prospect of his child so tenderly. Dear God, what would Mara do without her Cougar? “You, too.”

  There was too much anticipation in Cougar’s smile to ease her nerves. “Never intended to be anything but.” He called over to Clint “You got that package, Clint?”

  “Right here.”

  He tossed it. Cougar caught it before passing it to her.

  It was surprisingly heavy. “What’s this?”

  “A wedding present.”

  Putting it on the foyer table, she watched him stroll through the door as if he wasn’t going on a manhunt, facing killing, facing death. She shuddered. When she’d wished for excitement in her life, this wasn’t the kind she’d been hoping for. Before the door closed, she caught a glimpse of Asa leaning against the house, rifle draped across his arm. He tipped his hat. She managed a shaky smile. The door clicked shut.

  She became aware of a dampness against her chest. Pulling the sheets way, she saw the bright smear of blood across the pale yellow of her bodice. The one she’d worn in case Brad woke up because she thought the color would cheer him. Without thinking, she touched the spot. Her hand came away stained with the same red. A streak discolored the gold of her wedding band. She closed her hand over the stain. She was going to have to do laundry. Almost everything they had was blood-soaked.

  EVIE SAT BY the bed, the hard edges of the ladder-back chair she’d dragged up from the kitchen cutting into her thigh. There were more comfortable chairs already in the room, big overstuffed things that encouraged a body to curl up and relax—the one thing she couldn’t do. Doc had said Brad should wake tonight. She needed to be there when he did, needed to see awareness in his eyes.

  Moonlight cast the room in a pale glow. Brad lay in the middle of the bed, his skin leached of its natural vitality by blood loss.

  He was so white, his breathing so shallow. Evie had the overwhelming feeling that the only thing keeping him breathing was the amount of effort she put into willing it. It didn’t matter what Doc said, that the laudanum he’d given him for pain caused the shallow breaths. Didn’t matter that Cougar had meant to be there for Brad. She wasn’t interested in efforts. She wanted results.

  Brad frowned and shifted on the bed. His eyelids fluttered, his hand slid up over the covers toward his hip. Leaning forward she caught his hand. His flesh was hot and dry. “Shh, don’t move.”

  His frown deepened. “Brenda?”

  Who was Brenda?

  “No. It’s Evie.” She squeezed once, probably holding on too tightly. She just wanted him to open his eyes. “You were shot.”

  “Father found us?”

  Good heavens, he thought his father would shoot him? “No. Someone else.”

  His hand turned in hers, squeezing hard. “He’s coming.”

  His voice sounded so young. Was he reliving his past?

  “Where?” she asked, taking advantage of the moment.

  “Where he can’t find you.”

  As an experiment, she asked, “Where’s that?”

  “To the woods by the river, there’s a cave. He won’t find you there.”

  “He’s a reverend. A man of God.”

  He shook his head, grimacing. “Hurry!”

  Brad was breathing hard, his heart beating fast. Dear heavens, what had gone on in his home? Stroking her fingers across his brow, she pushed his hair off his face, giving him what he obviously needed to hear. “I’m hurrying.”

  His eyes opened as his grip on her hand changed, pushing rather than pulling. “Get in.”

  Delirium ruled his mind. She placed her palm on his shoulder. He was burning up. Swallowing back her terror at all the fever implied, she whispered, “I’m in.”

  The frown cleared from his face. “Good. Safe.”

  His breathing changed, his muscles tightened. She clutched his hand before he could let go. She didn’t want him to hurt, but she had to know. Just had to know that it all turned out right.

  That he’d been safe, too. Kissing the back of his hand, she asked, “What about you? Are you safe now?”

  There was a pause. He frowned. For an instant she thought he was awake. She wanted him to be awake but then his body jerked three times in a row. Breath hissed through his teeth and he snarled, “Touch her, and I’ll kill you.”

  Touch who? Brenda? Kill who? His father?

  He jerked again, his hands slamming into the mattress above his head while his body bucked under blows she couldn’t block. Pressing his shoulders into the mattress, she tried to keep him still. It was impossible. He was trapped in a nightmare she couldn’t stop. If he continued, he’d rip out his stitches. “Brad, please, you have to stop fighting.”

  He fought even harder, forcing her to throw her weight over him. His groan tore her heart out, but he didn’t stop fighting. If anything, his struggles intensified with a desperation that drove through her heart like a spike. No one should have memories so painful, so vivid.

  “Never. Whip me all you want. Have your congregation pray when you do it. I won’t be praying ever again. She’s dead, you bastard.”

  Those scars she’d imagined were from an act of heroism had actually been put there by his father? Stretching her middle finger, she touched the faint mark that curled over his shoulder and imagined the pain he’d endured as a child. The humiliation. “No one’s going to whip you.”

  His eyes found hers, seemed to focus. In a surprisingly lucid voice, he said, “She’s dead, you know.”

  “Who?”

  “Mom. I killed her.”

  The only one who was dying here was her. This glimpse into his past was devastating. “How?”

  “He told me if I prayed hard enough she’d live. But she didn’t.”

  What kind of monster told a child that? Kissing his cheek, her heart bleeding, she whispered, “He lied, Brad.”

  He blinked, suddenly looking totally adult, completely male as his mouth twisted with wry amusement. “God does that a lot.”

  At least he wasn’t tossing about. “What?”

  “Lie.”

  He couldn’t believe that. “No, he doesn’t.”

  She was talking to herself. Brad slumped back into the pillows, all the vitality she associated with him snuffed out. And that scared her more than anything else.

  Grabbing his shoulders, she leaned over so she could whisper in his ear, “Don’t you dare die on me, Brad Swanson. Unless you want me chaining your spirit to this Earth with the most off-
kilter wailing and burnt dinner offerings you or any other ghost has ever seen, you’d better not die.”

  It might have been her imagination, but she thought he smiled.

  THREE HOURS LATER there was another change. Brad went very still. Even his breathing stopped. She rushed to the bed. His eyes opened. For a minute, his gaze was vague, but then it focused. “Evie?”

  The tears she’d been battling for the last day welled. He recognized her. “Who else did you expect to find beside your bed?”

  He blinked. His “hurt?” was a dry rasp.

  “You were shot,” she explained.

  He closed his eyes and licked his lips, clearly trying to remember. “Casey.”

  Well, at least she had a name. “Casey shot you?”

  He nodded. “Cougar?”

  “He’s fine.”

  He grunted. “Couldn’t find him.”

  “You searched for him?”

  He cleared his throat. “Thought Casey might have picked him off.”

  So that explained why he’d been up on the ridge bleeding all over the place. She wanted to slap him for being so damn loyal.

  “He’s fine, so you don’t have to worry anymore.”

  Brad relaxed. “Good.”

  She filled the glass with water from the pitcher on the bed stand. “You must be thirsty.”

  Immediately, he started to get up.

  “No, don’t move.” He was so weak, just her hand in the center of his chest kept him put. His skin was warm, but not too warm. That, at least, was a positive. “You can’t afford to lose any more blood.”

  Beneath her palm, a subtle tension entered his muscles. His right hand curled into a fist. “How bad?”

  She wanted to cry at the careful question. Clearly, he remembered the wound’s location. She brushed his hair off his forehead, hoping he didn’t notice the tremble in her fingers. “The bullet missed everything important.” Slipping her arm behind his head, she angled him up toward the glass. “Doc said it was a miracle,” she whispered, savoring the texture of his skin against hers, the flex of his muscles as he drank, mentally encouraging him to take more, her hand shaking so badly she spilled some. “Sorry.”