Rugged Cowboys (Western Romance Collection)

by Amy Faye

  "What's up, then, that's so private?"

  "Well, I just heard some talk, and I wanted to know your thoughts."

  He raised an eyebrow. "Gossip is for private conversations, now?"

  "Well, it's about you."

  "Most gossip is, these days, one way or another."

  Her lips pressed together.

  "I just–you have to promise not to get mad, okay? I didn't believe a word of it, but I wanted to see what you had to say."

  Chris smiled curiously. "You're making me nervous, here. What is it? You hear I worship the devil or something?"

  "Who was that man who came to see you?"

  His smile dropped. He shouldn't have expected that it would stay quiet. It was a crowded bar, and he hadn't exactly had the presence of mind to keep the conversation light. Anyone who looked over would probably have seen that Chris was about ready to bust his brother's jaw.

  "What's the talk?"

  "Well, they say–they say you did something bad, and he's a law-man come to get you."

  Chris closed his eyes and let out a little chuckle. "Not quite right."

  Marie looked at him with an expression that he didn't like one bit. "Then what? What happened?"

  "You ever hear me ask you about your past?"

  "No," she said, reluctant.

  "You ever hear me ask about anyone's?"

  "Not really, but I suppose you could have done it when I wasn't around."

  "Well, I don't. Because I don't talk about my past, so I don't expect other people to do it neither. That's fair, don't you think?"

  "I don't understand what the secret is."

  "No secret," Chris said. He kept his face cool. "Everyone's got a story, and every story's got the bad parts. I don't like talkin' about it, and so I don't. If something's important, I'll tell you. Until then, don't push me. Please."

  She squirmed the whole time he was talking, until he said 'please,' and then she squirmed twice as much. "I didn't mean to offend you," she offered, looking down at the floor.

  "Hey. Look at me." He waited for her gaze to rise a little way. "You didn't offend me, Marie. I just don't want to talk about it."

  Her expression twisted up. "But why?"

  "Just things I don't like to think about any more. Things that happened, that aren't good memories for me."

  She bit her lip, and Chris could tell she had something to say. Part of him wanted to tell her to say it; part of him wanted him not to say it at all.

  "You mean like how you got to know so much about orphans?"

  He blinked to keep the expression from showing on his face, but Chris was pretty sure he managed to keep his emotion from showing.

  "Yeah, like that."

  She seemed to realize what she'd said after the words were out of her mouth.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to– I ought to just go."

  "Don't worry about me, Miss Bainbridge. I'll get over it."

  "But I shouldn't have been poking around where it's none of my business."

  "I forgive you."

  She didn't seem to have much of a reaction to that at all, like he hadn't said it.

  "I ought to go."

  "Sure," he said. His voice low. She turned and walked out the front. The sound of the rain punctuated her leaving. Jim caught the door from her as she stepped out.

  "Everything alright?"

  Chris shrugged. "Yeah, man. It's fine."

  "Anything good?"

  Chris stepped back up to the counter and peered at an angle to see if he could make out where the stain had been. It was mostly out, now, but you never notice until it's too late, just taking a cursory glance.

  "You know what I like about you, Jim?" Chris didn't wait for him to answer. "You never talk too much. Never sticking your nose into other folks' business."

  The bouncer got the hint and settled back into his seat with his book, and Chris went back to rubbing out a stain that shouldn't even have been there in the first place.

  Now if only the rest of his mistakes were so easy to get rid of.

  Twenty-Nine

  Marie was trapped. She didn't like being trapped, and she liked feeling trapped even less. Better to be it and not feel it, if you have the choice. That way, she could at least fool herself. Father had learned that lesson, and eventually even Marie had forgotten that there had been a time when she knew, consciously and at all times, that everything was going all wrong.

  Chris, though, didn't seem so accommodating.

  How much was she even allowed to know? How much was appropriate to wonder? She didn't know and at this point it was well past the point of just coming out and asking. He was right. There were things he didn't ask her about, and it was only fair that she respect those boundaries.

  That didn't help her curiosity, though. Because it always seems as if it's going to be perfectly normal. If she just knew what was going on, then maybe she would find out that it was all perfectly normal, too.

  That wasn't how it had gone with Father. Things had suddenly flown off the tracks, when things went bad. Which, inevitably, they were always going to. If she had known what was going on, if she'd been prepared–that is, if she'd been allowed to know–then it would have been something she could avoid from a long way off.

  She took a deep breath and settled into her seat. Why Owen wasn't there, she didn't know. To say that it was frustrating, though… it was well past frustrating. He was avoiding her, it seemed, and she couldn't begin to guess why except that he wasn't giving her the room that she had paid for, that she was still paying for.

  He didn't subscribe to any of the nonsense talk about her. He certainly hadn't asked her about any of it, and he wouldn't have just made the decision to keep her out–of her own room, no less–without consulting her. Mr. Maxim wasn't that kind of person.

  So she took in a deep breath and straightened her back and waited, the only option afforded her other than simply walking out in a huff. Eventually, he had to come out, or there would be a great many hungry people waiting come supper time.

  It gave her far too much time by herself, though, as the place sat empty. She could see Zella standing over by the kitchen, but every time that Marie actually looked up, she turned back in as if someone had called her back.

  They certainly were avoiding her. The only question was why, and what she could do about it. If there was anything, and if there wasn't, then at least say something so she could get her things and find someplace else to stay.

  Honestly. It was beginning to feel like a pattern with this town. If someone would simply talk to her, maybe some of their problems could be solved, but apparently everyone found it much easier and more convenient if they just avoided her as much as possible, pushed things off as long as they could, and then pretended that they hadn't.

  She had half a mind to step right through that kitchen door and give them a piece of her mind. She stopped herself, though, in spite of her frustration. Chris had been right, even if she didn't have to like it. She was sticking her nose in where it wasn't needed, and where others had at least made the passing attempt to keep their own noses out of her business.

  Still, at some point she'd have to figure something out. Someone would have to start talking, or she was going to go mad. She had no problem being the one to start the ball rolling, if that were even possible. There was absolutely no excuse for being unwilling to do what you'd ask of someone else.

  The problem was, though, that she was already doing everything that she could. She kept no secrets–well, no, that wasn't true at all, was it?

  She had things that she didn't talk about. Things that it wouldn't have been appropriate to discuss. But sitting on the outside, anyone would see that as just being her keeping things from them, and in a certain way of looking at it, that's what she was doing. Discretion looked very much like secrecy from the outside, as she well knew.

  Marie rose from her seat and took a breath. Her clothes were most of the way dry, now, and with just a little bit o
f luck, they might not be soaked through by the time she got back to her hotel. At least, that was what she let herself hope.

  The rain was still coming down, softer now, the last dying gasps of insistence that the rain wouldn't let up just because of some inconvenience it might have been causing people. Soon, those last attempts would die off, and the sun would start shining through the clouds. It just hadn't happened quite yet, but it was as inevitable as the sun rising the next morning.

  Marie allowed herself to hum a little tune as she crossed the street, a half-remembered melody that almost certainly had a more straightforward tune when she had first heard it. Someone let out a yell, off in the distance. It might have been anything, at first.

  And then it was followed by a shot, and the options for what it might have been tightened up considerably. Marie's heart threatened to stop right in her chest.

  It couldn't possibly have been what it sounded like. Perhaps she had heard someone startled by an animal, and they'd fired the shot for their own safety.

  The idea didn't calm her down one bit, and she was off and running before she knew what she was doing. That wasn't the sound of someone being spooked and then shooting a snake, she knew.

  Someone was hurt, and they were hurt bad, and if she didn't do anything then she'd have no right to complain about anyone else, either. Now she just had to hope she got there in time.

  Thirty

  Chris's mood hadn't improved. He didn't expect it to, but he had hoped in spite of himself. No such luck, it would seem. He took in a deep breath and rubbed a little more.

  Nobody would see the stain. In all likelihood, few people would have seen it before. That was the happy fact. But Chris would have seen it every time he looked down, and that was reason enough to clean the mess up. Now even he couldn't see it, even if he looked for it quite hard.

  That should have been a small victory all by itself, but it wasn't. There were good reasons he didn't talk about his past. Very good reasons indeed. But somehow, none of them mattered enough to make him feel better about snapping at Marie, the way that she'd sulked out of the bar sticking in his mind like a bit of food stuck between his teeth.

  And just like that, every few moments he would run into it again, and he'd be stuck trying to rub it clean, the same way that he'd rubbed the counter. Unlike the counter, the only way to fix it was to forget about it, but in spite of himself he couldn't.

  Then the shout. It was out back, and shouts weren't unheard of. In fact, a day without any shouting was much more worthy of comment, with Sarah's girls working as much as they did, and the sort of people who see those girls being who they are.

  The shot afterward, though–that was what pulled Chris out of his stupor. His hand went automatically to his pistol and slipped it free, and waved Jim to follow along. The broad-chested bouncer pulled himself out of the seat like a man half his size and twice as energetic. He was like a whole new person, Chris thought with a sour wryness.

  He didn't wait to see how close the bouncer would follow behind him, though. He was out the door in a second and moving down the street. It didn't take long to find where the commotion had come from, because there were already people beginning to gather around.

  Chris slipped his pistol back home into its holster and shouldered his way through the crowd.

  "What happened here?"

  Someone Chris didn't immediately recognize turned to regard him. "He's shot," the man said, as if it were some kind of revelation.

  A young man lay on the ground, blood coming out of a hole in his belly in kicks and spurts, his eyes glassing over even as he groaned in pain, holding his hand over the wound as if his life depended on it.

  If the doctor were a skilled surgeon, maybe it would have, but Chris's expectations were grim. He leaned in and pressed his own hand down on the wound. Mickey groaned in pain and then sucked in a sharp breath as if he would only have one last chance.

  "What happened?"

  The man blinked hard, like it was a struggle, and kept his eyes shut a second. Then he opened them again.

  "I don't rightly–he just asked me for the time, and then he shot."

  Chris cursed. "Did you get a look at him?"

  "Tall," the guy said. "Wore a hat. Uh. Dark eyes. Dark hair."

  He laid his head back on the ground, his eyes looking around wildly as his body finally started to realize that the jig was up and delirium started to take over.

  Chris cursed again. "You're going to be fine, Mick. Don't panic. Just give it a minute, the doc will be here any time."

  There was no chance. It had been too long already. He might be able to survive the initial shot, if they hurried. If the doc got there in the next few minutes. The odds of infection were nearly a hundred percent, though, and there wasn't much they could do at that point. Cutting out the rot would be like carving the man in half, with a wound this size and all the dirt and grit on the ground.

  People started to stand back. Chris didn't bother looking up. Sheriff Roberts stood over him and the bartender kept his weight down on the wound, trying in vain to keep the blood from spilling out around his fingers.

  "Help me get him up. He's got to get to a doctor."

  The Sheriff crossed to the other side wordlessly and between the two of them, they managed to get Mickey on his feet. Chris tried to take as much of the weight as he could while keeping pressure on the wound, in spite of his doubts, forcing himself to hope.

  The doc wasn't far. When the doc and a nurse met them halfway with a thick stack of bandages, Chris allowed himself just a little genuine hope, in spite of the fact that Mick had passed out from the pain and blood loss. The four of them lifted the unconscious man onto a table. With a long look back, Chris left as the doctor started calling out orders and rooting around to clean the wound out.

  He settled himself into a seat and leaned his head back. The Sheriff settled into a seat opposite.

  "He'll be alright," Roberts offered. Chris let him think so. He couldn't afford to jinx it, not knowing who'd done the job.

  "Yeah, the doc's good at his job."

  "What do you know about what happened?"

  The question was phrased in an idle way, like he was just asking the only person in the room. Sheriff Roberts had a good way of acting, when he wanted to, like he was your bud. But it was no accident that it was Chris who he was asking.

  "I don't know anything for sure," Chris answered. It was the truth.

  "Now you know I ain't asked you anything about where you been before," Roberts started, leaving the rest to Chris's imagination.

  "Sure. And don't think I don't appreciate it."

  "But something in my gut says you know something about this."

  "You can take my piece, if you like," Chris offered. He left out that he had another in his room, and that he'd be going right for it after his heart started to slow down.

  "I didn't say I thought you did it, Broadmoor. I said you know more than you're telling, and I want to hear it."

  "I don't know anything, Sheriff. If I did, I'd come right to you."

  "Then guess for me."

  Chris let his eyes drift shut and took a long, deep breath. He considered the idea for a minute. He could do it, too. Wouldn't even be that hard. All he'd have to do was come out with as much or as little information as he absolutely had to. Roberts was trying his damnedest to be clear–just a hint would be enough.

  The problem was, though, that just a hint would be enough to get him into the room. It would be enough to put him into a situation where he'd just get himself shot.

  Chris couldn't do that. He wouldn't. "I don't know anything, Sheriff."

  All he could hope for was forgiveness after he dealt with it himself.

  Thirty-One

  Marie watched the events unfolding in front of her with a cold, twisting gut and a feeling that whatever was behind it, Chris was taking it worse than the likely death of someone he probably didn't even know. Marie had never seen the injured man befor
e in her life, not that it meant much of anything. She hadn't seen half the town before.

  And yet, there Chris was, at the center of this maelstrom, as people whispered in voices too low for Marie to make out. It was easier to make out the disconcerted looks on their faces, and much easier to figure out what they were staring at. The Sheriff came before too long, in the tow of a young man with a low hat-brim, and a moment later Roberts helped Chris to take the body away.

  Something told her that she ought to have helped, but she just… froze. She should have known what to do. She'd done it enough times, back in New Orleans, but… with all that blood… The man was already nearly knocking on heaven's door, and the odds that he could be saved for love or money were so slim.

  She tried to move to follow, but her body wouldn't move. All she could do was watch the blood—so much blood—soak into the grass. She felt strangely detached, almost numb, as if she weren't really being affected by any of the things going on around her. As if none of it were real.

  She snapped out of it when someone—a big man, the one from the bar who had left them to their privacy only a little while ago—wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her away.

  "You oughtn't see this, ma'am," he was saying softly. She heard him in the same way she heard all the voices around. Where had Chris gone? She'd lost him, when he'd moved away. When she hadn't followed him, even though she'd thought that she would, she'd thought that she wanted to.

  Marie's mind started to catch up to the situation a minute later, when she had finally gotten far enough away. When she couldn't smell the acrid, unpleasant smell of gunpowder and the hint of coppery sweetness that was blood hanging in the air. She looked around. Recognized her surroundings.

  And more than that, she recognized Chris coming out of the doctor's place, his shoulders set low and hard and a mean look on his face. He glared right at her, but he didn't see her. Whatever he was seeing, she knew the expression because she'd seen it before.

  The teacher slipped out of the big man's arms. He made a half-hearted attempt to stop her, but then an instant later he saw Chris and decided that he didn't want to be there any more. Marie understood the doubts but didn't have room to indulge them.