Cash (The Rock Creek Six Book 6)

by Linda Winstead Jones

  As they reached the third floor, he heard Eden crying from that room. Nadine was calmly soothing an unharmed Millie, and Hannah held one of her own babies as if she couldn’t ever hold that child close enough.

  Fiona.

  Cash pushed past the women and dragged JD into the girls’ room. Fiona sat on the floor, crying, her head bent over a doll, while Eden soothed her. He saw no blood, though he would breathe easier when he got a closer look at Sullivan’s daughter. Just to be certain.

  Assured that Fiona was all right, his eyes flicked over the signs of violence in the room. A bullet had slammed into the wall by the door, another had torn into a pillow on the bed. And Fiona lifted her doll for her mother to examine. A bullet had torn through the doll’s midsection.

  “Do you see what you did?” Cash seethed. “What did you think was behind the Paradise Hotel sign? Did you think the bullets would stop when they hit what you wanted them to hit?”

  “JD did this?” Nadine asked, paling as she lifted her head from a weepy-eyed Millie.

  JD went even whiter than his mother. “I didn’t think... I was just aiming for the ‘i.’ “ He glanced around the room, and when he saw where the bullet had torn into the bed, he swayed and lifted a hand to his mouth.

  “Nadine,” Cash snapped. “Get downstairs. Sullivan’s been shot.”

  “What?” Eden jumped up and followed.

  “It’s a shoulder wound, nothing serious.” He did know enough to aim for a place where minimal damage would be done.

  “JD shot the sheriff?” Nadine asked, her voice low and trembling.

  “No,” Cash said, dragging JD down the stairs and into the lobby where Jed was examining Sullivan on the sofa. “I did.”

  Before anyone could respond, he dragged JD into the night, where his son promptly rushed to the edge of the boardwalk and vomited the whiskey he had ingested onto the street. Cash had a very strong urge to join his son, to stand at the edge of the boardwalk and spew his guts. He pushed down the urge and stood there, waiting until the kid was finished retching and gagging, and was so weak he could hardly stand up.

  “What got into you?” he asked softly. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  JD turned around and lifted his eyes, pinning them to Cash’s. Hell, the kid was fearless. “What do you care? I figured you’d be off somewhere poking my mother and wouldn’t give a shit what I did.” The kid sounded tough, but tears came to his eyes, catching the light that poured from the hotel lobby. “We came to Rock Creek to ask for your help, and you turned my mother into your own personal whore.”

  Cash grabbed his son by the collar and pulled him up on his toes so they were eye to eye. “If any other man said those things about your mother, he’d be dead now.”

  “Go ahead,” JD said, only the telltale tears marring his tough act. “Shoot me.”

  His rage dwindled to a simmer, his heart slowed to something close to a normal rhythm. He didn’t know how JD had found out, but once the kid knew there was going to be a wedding, that the three of them... the four of them... were going to be a family, he’d think differently.

  “Listen to me, JD,” Cash began calmly. Hell, there was so much to say, he didn’t know where to start. “Your mother and I...”

  “You keep your goddamn hands off my mother,” JD said, his voice rising slightly.

  “JD...”

  “I hate you,” the boy added in a lower voice.

  The words, so heartfelt, cut to the core.

  “I hate you,” JD said again, and Cash had no doubt that the words were true.

  * * *

  Nadine wished she had the instruments Cash had ordered as she worked on the man laid out on his own bed. Sullivan had insisted the climb to the third floor would not be too arduous, but by the time he’d reached his bed, he was about to pass out.

  “I’m going to have to remove the bullet,” she said calmly.

  He simply nodded.

  She wanted to talk to Cash and JD, but there was no time. The sooner she got this done and the bleeding stopped, the better off Sullivan would be. She had to force her hands to stop trembling. Thinking about how close JD had come to accidentally taking the life of a child terrified her.

  Everyone wanted to watch and to help, but Nadine forced them all, even Eden, from the room. The people surrounding the bed were agitated, weeping and angry. She needed peace and quiet to accomplish her chore.

  Once they were alone, Sullivan spoke in a low voice. “I can’t believe Cash actually shot me.”

  “What happened?” Nadine asked as she cleaned the area around the wound.

  “I didn’t know it was JD out there. All I knew was that someone was shooting at the hotel, and when I saw where he was aiming, I drew. I panicked. He was aiming right for the girls’ room.”

  “Cash thought you were going to shoot JD.”

  “I guess so.”

  Nadine closed her eyes.

  “We shouldn’t have let the girls have a room on the street side,” Sullivan said weakly. “We’ve been safe for so long we... we forgot what it’s like to be on guard all the time.” He smiled weakly. “Millie likes that room because it gets the morning sun.”

  Nadine opened her bag and removed a scalpel. She had done this only twice before. Once she’d removed a bullet from the leg of a man who had accidentally shot himself, and another time she’d removed a bullet from the Marianna sheriff’s arm. She had never delved into shoulder muscle.

  A soft knock on the door interrupted her as she was about to begin. The preacher, Nate, opened the door. “Need some help?” he asked. He had rolled up his sleeves and looked ready to get to work. “I’ve done this before,” he added.

  Nadine gratefully waved him in.

  * * *

  What was taking so long? How long did it take to dig out a damn bullet?

  Sullivan was tough, Cash reminded himself as he paced in the empty lobby. There was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

  JD had finally climbed the stairs and into the bed in Nadine’s room. The kid was sick, and in the morning he wouldn’t feel any better. His head would be pounding and he’d realize what he’d done. That’s when the real pain would start.

  The babies were finally in bed, and everyone else, everyone, waited in the third-floor hallway for the surgery to be finished.

  He didn’t dare go up there, not now. He couldn’t look any one of them in the eye. Especially Eden. He played the shooting over and over in his mind, wondering what he could have done differently. If he’d seen what was happening a split second sooner, would a shout have stopped Sullivan in time? If he’d aimed over Sullivan’s head and fired a warning shot, would it have done the trick?

  If he’d done anything differently, would Nadine and Nate be upstairs right now, trying to save JD?

  He heard a footstep on the stair and turned, hoping to see Nadine with a smile on her face and good news about Sullivan’s condition. But it was Eden, all alone and red-eyed.

  “Why?” she asked, a hard edge to her voice he was not accustomed to. “Why did you shoot him?”

  Cash watched as Eden finished walking down the stairs, hanging on to the banister as if she needed the support. Once she reached the lobby, she headed straight for him.

  “I had no choice,” he whispered. “He was going to shoot JD.”

  She shook her head. “You could have shouted to him that it was JD. He never would’ve shot that child.”

  “It was too late.”

  “Too late to yell but not too late to shoot?” Eden countered accusingly.

  It was his instinct, he had to admit, to shoot first and talk later. So much a part of who he was that he had drawn his gun and shot Sullivan without a single second thought.

  “I couldn’t let him shoot JD,” he said again. The sight of that weapon aimed at the boy had brought out a protective instinct he was unaccustomed to, that he didn’t know how to handle. But he wanted Eden to realize why he’d done what he’d done. She was a moth
er, surely she would understand. “He’s my son.”

  Her red-rimmed eyes went wide. “JD is your...”

  Cash nodded. “I didn’t know about him until they came here, but yeah. He’s mine.”

  Eden’s expression softened. “I should have seen it,” she whispered. “He does look like you, now that I think about it. He even... acts like you sometimes.”

  How could everything change so quickly? All his plans, everything he wanted, gone. Cash knew it even if no one else did.

  “JD might look like me, but he has his mother’s eyes,” Cash said, feeling a bit dizzy all of a sudden. “Thank God for that.” His vision swam, and he tried to blink the fuzziness away. His knees wobbled in a way they never had before. “I’m so glad he has his mother’s eyes,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t want him to see what I’ve seen.”

  Eden laid a hand on his arm. “This changes everything for you, doesn’t it?” she asked softly.

  Cash nodded his head, then shook it. He couldn’t stay here, not now. It didn’t matter what he wanted, it didn’t matter what Nadine wanted. He couldn’t stay and he couldn’t take Nadine and JD with him when he left. He’d stick around until Sullivan was on his feet again, a few days at most, and then he’d leave.

  “Daniel,” Eden said.

  He looked down into wide blue eyes.

  “If Sin dies,” she continued once she had his full attention, “I’ll kill you.”

  “He’s not going to die,” he assured her, something inside him breaking. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Nadine that Eden was like the sister he’d never had. She was gentle and good, but he had no doubt that this woman who would shoo a fly outside rather than swat it would kill him if her husband died.

  * * *

  The surgery was over, and it had gone as well as could be expected. Sullivan’s shoulder was bandaged, and he slept deeply. Nate had been a tremendous help, but she’d removed the bullet and stitched the wound herself. Oh, she hoped she was not in for a regular round of this kind of doctoring by opening her clinic in Rock Creek.

  She left a much-relieved Eden sitting at her husband’s bedside, and walked down the stairs to her room, ready for rest, wondering if she would be able to sleep with the day’s events whirling around in her mind.

  Everyone else had gone home or to bed, but Cash stood outside her door, back to the wall and head down, those damned six-shooters resting comfortably against his thighs. He lifted his head and laid his eyes on her as she descended from the third floor.

  “JD’s sleeping in there,” he said, nodding toward her door. “He’s pretty much spread all over the bed.”

  “You checked on him?” she whispered.

  He nodded. “The room next door is empty and prepared for a guest, so you can sleep there tonight.”

  You, he said. Not we. “Cash...”

  “I’m going back to my room above the... above your clinic,” he said before she could question him. “It’s for the best, Nadine.”

  She knew he wasn’t talking about one night. Could see in his dark eyes that he was on the verge of running. They’d come so close to starting over, and now... she didn’t know what to expect next.

  “And in the morning?” she asked calmly.

  “I’ll be here until Sullivan is on his feet, and then I have to go.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  He placed his hands on her face, tender and sweet and trembling. “It was nice to pretend for a little while that we could make it work. But that’s all it was, Nadine. Pretend. I can count my true friends on one hand, and tonight I shot one of them.”

  “Everyone understands...”

  “That’s what my life is like, Nadine. It’s not going to change.”

  “If we want something bad enough, we can make it true.”

  Cash shook his head in denial. “JD hates me, and with good reason. He’s ordered me to leave you alone, and whether or not I like it, the kid’s right. I have no business pretending I can stay with you.” His thumbs rocked on her cheeks.

  “I have to go,” he whispered.

  “You think you can protect us by leaving, but I won’t make it easy for you.” She would fight if she had to. She fought now, reaching out to touch Cash tenderly, to lay her hand over his heart.

  He ignored her gentle hand on his chest. “I know how you fight, Nadine. I’m prepared to fight back. If you tell anyone that child is mine, I’ll deny it,” he said harshly. “If you tell anyone I told you I love you, I’ll deny it. As far as the world is concerned, I have no son, I have no woman, I have nothing.” He dropped his hands from her face and backed away.

  Chapter 17

  Cash had never been plagued with attacks of conscience before. When he couldn’t sleep, it was because his mind was going in too many different directions, or because his instincts were telling him it wasn’t safe to rest.

  But he lay in the bed above what had once been Rogue’s Palace, unable to close his eyes. Sullivan was wounded, JD hated him, and Nadine was going to have a child on her own, after he left. A child he could never claim, a child born out of wedlock.

  For years he had despised Joseph Ellington for marrying Nadine. He’d cursed the man on nights he’d joined Nate in draining a bottle; he’d blamed Ellington for ruining his life... and then, sober again, he would silently and bitterly thank Nadine’s husband for saving him from a life of domestic hell.

  Knowing what he knew now, that Ellington and Nadine had believed him dead and she’d been carrying his child, he found a kind of respect for Joseph Ellington. There was a quiet nobility in taking in and protecting another man’s child.

  Cash’s heart pounded. Who would protect Nadine now? Who would look after JD and the baby? He’d gone into battle more times than he could count, during the war and after. He’d hired his gun out to protect those who could not protect themselves. But this was different. A family needed more than a gun. So much more.

  Cash left his bed long before sunrise, slipped on one of his lucky shirts, a vest, and his best black suit, and strapped on his guns before stepping onto a quiet Rock Creek street.

  It was peaceful, with no sign of last night’s bloodshed. All was quiet. This place had been a shithole when he’d first seen it. The people scared, the town dying. Today it flourished, in part because of what he and the other five had done. Bringing this town back to life was one of the few truly good things he’d accomplished in his life. When he looked back, he couldn’t find nearly enough good things in his memory.

  Nate was a light sleeper, just as Cash was, and it didn’t take much of a knock on the rectory door to wake the preacher.

  Bleary-eyed with lack of sleep and dressed in nothing but a pair of trousers, Nate opened the door. “What’s wrong?”

  He and Nate had been through a lot together. They had ridden to hell and back and survived. They’d fought side by side and with each other, kicked ass, celebrated, commiserated...

  “I need a favor,” he said softly.

  Without asking what the favor was, Nate nodded his head.

  * * *

  Nadine was so tired, she didn’t want to wake up, not even to that familiar hand shaking her shoulder. It was barely light outside, gray and quiet. The perfect time for sleeping.

  “Nadine,” Cash called, shaking her shoulder again.

  She was so accustomed to waking with him at her side, it took her a moment to remember that he hadn’t stayed with her last night. She opened her eyes to find him hovering over her, dressed and somber.

  “What’s wrong?” Someone must be hurt, or very ill, for him to come to her this way.

  “You said you would marry me.”

  “I did.”

  “Then let’s do it now.”

  She smiled softly. “Right now? Oh, I’m so glad you changed your mind—”

  “I didn’t change my mind,” he interrupted. “I’m still leaving, but... for the sake of the baby, I want us to be married. When he’s older you can let him know that... t
hat I did do the right thing. By then no one will care about Daniel Cash.”

  Because he’d be dead. The words were unspoken, but she knew what he meant. He was going to leave Rock Creek and go out there and get himself killed.

  “You’re doing this just for the baby?” she whispered.

  “Yes.”

  She should tell him to go to hell, that she didn’t want him this way. He looked so miserable, she didn’t have the heart. “All right.”

  Nadine dressed while Cash paced, not bothering to root through her things to search for something special.

  A green calico skirt and linen blouse would do just fine. She tied a ribbon at the nape of her neck, capturing the thickness of her hair instead of taking the time to twist it up.

  When she was ready, Cash took her arm and led her down the stairs, onto the street, and toward the church. His steps were too long, too fast, and she hurried to keep up. Outside the church doors, he stopped, took a deep breath, and muttered a foul word. Then he threw the doors open and walked inside, where Nate and his wife waited.

  Cash closed the doors behind them, then glared accusingly at Jo, who held a sleeping baby in her arms. “I said no one,” he muttered.

  “We need a witness,” Nate said. “Jo won’t tell anyone.”

  “So this is a secret, too?” Nadine asked as they walked toward the altar.

  “Yes. Eventually the people who count will know. That’s all that matters.”

  She had always heard that weddings were supposed to be happy occasions. Neither of her weddings could be called happy. The first wedding had been horrendous. Her father demanding, her heart breaking. Had she stopped crying for even five minutes that day? Not that she could remember. She’d thought Danny dead, and the only reason she’d had for going on was the baby she carried.

  And now... their marriage would be a secret, her baby would never know his father, and in a matter of days Cash would leave her again. This time she wouldn’t be able to naively fool herself into thinking he would be coming back one day.