Zeb smiled sardonically. “I thought I’d just shoot her, but then it wouldn’t look like a suicide, would it? Your idea is better.”
Jo glared down at him, sickened by the self-satisfied glint in his eyes. “I should have killed you when I had the chance,” she said.
“Yes, you probably should have. I guess Six-Shooter Hank wasn’t as scary as the paper made him out to be. You’re a coward, Mrs. O’Malley. You let your husband hang in front of your eyes and you couldn’t even kill me for doing it.”
“You won’t get away with this, Zeb. Fletcher will know it was you. He already knows Will MacGregor worked for you, and somehow he’ll prove you killed him last night.”
“So what if I did? If Fletcher has a problem with it, I’ll take care of him, too. But I’m tired of talking. I’m thirsty and I want to get back to Dodge to find that boy of yours, before he blabbers all over town what he knows.”
The mere mention of Leo shook Jo to the core. She felt a rage inside herself like she’d never felt before, and yet she knew she was at Zeb’s mercy. She had to stay calm. “Please, Zeb, leave Leo alone. He’s just a boy.”
“I told you I didn’t want to talk anymore.” He raised the rifle and pointed it at the peaked roof.
There was no way out of this! He was going to spook the horse and she could do nothing but watch! Just like the last time!
He pulled the trigger and the bullet ripped through the roof, booming in Jo’s ears like a thunderclap.
The horse reared up. Jo held on with her legs as the noose tightened around her neck and chafed against her skin. She was barely on the mare’s back anymore. Most of her weight was hanging in the rope. She couldn’t breathe!
The mare’s front hooves slammed onto the ground. Choking, feeling her heart burn, Jo shut her eyes and thought of Fletcher. She prayed he would save Leo.
Just then, the mare moved back, and Jo’s weight lightened in the rope. She coughed and struggled for breath. Confused and trembling uncontrollably, she leaned forward onto the horse’s mane again.
Somewhere in the whirlwind of her consciousness, she heard Zeb laughing. “Looks like I might just have to shoot her after all. To hell with a suicide.”
“Zeb, no…”
He raised the rifle and aimed it at the horse’s head. Jo squeezed her eyes shut, feeling tears spill out as Zeb pulled the trigger again.
The gun clicked.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Zeb said, staring at the weapon.
Jo began to sit up, but fear flared through her anew when Zeb dropped the gun and walked toward her. “What are you doing?” she asked, sobbing now.
He didn’t answer. He just slapped the horse on the rump.
The mare darted forward. Jo’s body lurched with the horse, then whipped back and she fell off. All air was cut off. She was hanging from the neck, swinging and kicking, praying it would be over soon, and that Fletcher would save Leo….
* * *
Fletcher didn’t even have a chance to think. He walked into the barn and focused everything on shooting that rope in two. He aimed his rifle through the dim light, shut one eye and fired. The noise frightened the barn animals to shrieking and Jo dropped to the ground in a heap of skirts and petticoats.
Fletcher held his rifle in steady hands and fixed his aim on Zeb’s black heart.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Zeb asked, his tone dripping with irritation. “I thought you were taking care of the saloon district tonight.”
“It doesn’t matter much. The only thing that matters is where you’re going. And that’s straight to hell.”
Zeb raised his hands in the air. “You won’t shoot me. You’ve never shot anyone in your life.”
“I haven’t wanted to—until now.”
Zeb glanced down at Jo, who had wrestled her hands free and was tugging at the rope around her neck. “So…you did become infatuated with her.”
“Shut up, Zeb. I’m taking you in.”
Zeb spoke in a businesslike tone. “Why don’t we talk about this? I’m sure we can come to a profitable arrangement, for both of us.”
“I said shut up,” Fletcher said, “and I meant it. Unless you want to leave here with your brains in a bucket.”
Zeb considered it. “No, I don’t suppose I do.” He took a step forward and held out his wrists. “Go ahead, then. Take me in. You’ll have a hell of a time convicting me, though. I have a lot of powerful friends.”
Fletcher lowered the rifle to his side and pulled his cuffs out of the back of his belt. “It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“You sound full of confidence.”
“I am, Mr. Greer.”
Zeb froze. “I beg your pardon?”
“I found your signature as Greer all over the papers under your desk. You’re going to jail for a long time, Zeb.”
But just as Fletcher flicked the handcuffs open, Zeb pulled a small revolver out of his pocket.
“Fletcher, look out!” Jo shouted, scrambling to her feet with the rope still tied around her neck.
Zeb fired. Pain coursed through Fletcher’s side and he stumbled back into a pile of hay.
“No!” Jo called out.
Zeb leaped onto Fletcher and went for his throat. Choking, Fletcher tried to push him off.
“No one’s taking me in,” Zeb said, growling between clenched teeth. He squeezed Fletcher’s neck. “I’ve come too far.”
Fletcher gasped for air, kicking and pulling against Zeb’s hands. His gut throbbed with pain. Blood soaked his shirt.
Without warning, a garden shovel made an arc through the air and smashed against Zeb’s head. He jolted under the blow and dropped like a sack of corn flour onto Fletcher’s chest.
“Are you all right?” Jo asked, pulling Zeb off. “You’re shot!”
“You don’t say.” Fletcher tried to sit up, but Jo pushed him back down. “Lie still. I’ll get the wagon.”
Fletcher’s stomach churned. “I don’t feel so good.”
“Hang on!” she yelled over her shoulder, darting toward the barn door and pulling the double doors open.
He stared up at the gambrel-roofed trusses high above him and waited for Jo to come back. Damn, but his side hurt. And his heart was pounding like a hammer. He shut his eyes tight against the pain, wishing it hadn’t come to this. He’d done none of the things he’d wanted to do with his life. He’d been wasting so much time.
Jo, where are you?
Soon he began to feel cold, and though there was still so much he wanted to do in this life, he just couldn’t hold on anymore. He slipped into unconsciousness.
* * *
Jo raced toward the wagon, leaped onto the seat and slapped the reins hard against the horses’ backs. “Yah! Yah!”
Startled into action, the team trotted into the barn. Jo jumped down. “Fletcher! Wake up!” She knelt beside him and tried to shake him, but he was completely out. Panic swept through her. She put her ear to his chest. “Where’s your heartbeat?”
The soft thumping relieved her fears, but she still had to get him to the doctor. The horses were tired, but there was no time to unhitch and change them.
She pulled Fletcher up by the arm and felt an excruciating stab of pain in her shoulder as she lifted him and tried to stand. “Hold on. Don’t give up now,” she said, wobbling under his weight.
As gently as she could manage, she lowered him onto the back of the wagon. Her heart ached at the sight of his unconscious form and the blood soaking his shirt.
Feeling the effects of her own wound—hoping she’d not opened it up to bleed under the strain of what she’d just done—she hurried to climb into the wagon seat, barely even aware of the noose still around her neck. She was about to flick the reins when she looked down and saw Zeb, sprawled in a heap beside a saddle horse.
Jo stared down at him. Was he still breathing, she wondered frantically, or had she killed him with the shovel? She had to know.
Quickly hopping down, she rolled him o
ver onto his back. She placed her fingers under his nose and felt the heat and moisture of his breath.
Operating only on instinct, she dragged him by the arm across the barn floor toward the wagon, pulling with all her might, feeling another excruciating pain in her shoulder. Oh, God! It was too much. She couldn’t take it anymore. She let him drop for a moment while she searched around the dimly lit floor for Fletcher’s handcuffs. After spotting them a few feet away, she strained to roll Zeb over again onto his stomach, then fastened the cuffs onto his wrists behind his back. “That ought to hold you.”
Struggling with his heavy, limp body, she groaned and staggered as she lifted him onto the wagon to lie beside Fletcher, then she climbed back onto the seat. “Let’s go,” she said to the horses.
They drove out the opposite door, and Jo slapped the reins to urge them into a gallop, praying with all her heart that she would make it to Dodge in time to save both the lives she was trying to save.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jo sat by the front window in Dr. Green’s office, tapping her foot on the floor, waiting impatiently while he operated on Fletcher in the back room. She thought of how she’d suffered earlier in the day when she’d said good-bye to Fletcher on the train, and how she’d not thought the pain of their separation could be any worse. Yet, here it was—much worse. The misery on the train had been compounded by fear when she learned about Leo’s disappearance, and now it had swelled, yet again, to a breed of torture she’d not thought possible.
She dropped her forehead into her hands and shuddered with dread and trepidation, fearing she would be sick if the doctor came out and told her that Fletcher was dead. Please, let him live. Even if we can’t be together, just let him live.
Voices rose in the street and Jo sat up. The front door of the doctor’s office swung open.
“Ma!” Leo called out, rushing to her and wrapping his arms around her waist.
She stood and cupped his head in her hand, bending forward to kiss his cheeks. “Oh, Leo! I’m so glad to see you.” Tears welled up in her eyes and she exhaled with relief.
Cecil walked in behind Leo.
“You found him,” Jo said, her heart overflowing with gratitude.
“Sure did. Just a short time after I sent Marshal Collins after you.”
“Where were you?” she asked Leo, stroking his hair and lifting his chin so she could see his face.
“I was sitting on the steps at Jensen’s Boardinghouse with John, waiting for Marshal Collins.”
“Whatever for?”
“To tell him about the letter I found, and that I gave it to Mr. Stone.”
Jo took his face in both her hands. “You did a very foolish thing, Leo. You should have come to me first.”
“I know, Ma. I’m real sorry. I only wanted to make you proud of me, but I won’t ever go against what you say again. Uncle Cecil told me everything.”
She stroked the hair off his forehead. Ah, to see her son’s face and hold him close in her arms…her dear, sweet boy. She was so very grateful to have been spared the loss of him, which would have been unbearable.
“And from this day forward,” she said, “I won’t keep things from you either, Leo. I’ll try to give you more freedoms. I’ll agree to that because you’re getting older. But remember, you’re still my son, and there will still be rules, until you are older.”
“Yes, Ma,” he groaned good-naturedly.
Jo held him close and he allowed it for a moment, then stepped back and straightened his shirt. “So, is it true?” Leo asked pointedly.
“Is what true?”
“What John told me about you and the marshal—that you two are in love?”
Caught off guard, Jo stepped back. “John told you that?”
“Yes, Ma, while we were talking at the boardinghouse. He went there to have a word with the marshal about it. That’s how we met up with each other.”
“What exactly did John plan to say to the marshal?” Jo asked uneasily.
Leo looped a thumb through his belt. “He was going to tell Marshal Collins that if he didn’t treat you right, he’d be sorry for it, because you deserve to be happy.”
“I see,” Jo replied, putting it in her mind to thank John one of these days, then worrying about how she was going to tell Leo that what he’d heard wasn’t true, that it was only a charade. At least, she thought it was.
Wasn’t it? Could she dare to hope?
“Will there be a wedding like folks have been saying?” Leo asked.
Jo shuddered inwardly. “Well, I’m not sure, Leo. Things are very complicated with the marshal and me.” Not wanting to go into any more detail than that, she stated the obvious. “Do you know what happened to him?” Her stomach turned over with dread.
Leo peered up at her somberly. “Yes, Ma, and I hope he’s all right, ’cause I like him a lot. I think Pa would have liked him, too.”
* * *
An hour later, Jo sat next to the bed waiting, holding Fletcher’s hand. “Please wake up,” she whispered softly in his ear. “Don’t die on me.”
Touching him, so still and lifeless, made the pain in her heart resonate through her entire body.
She sat back and watched him. Teardrops fell from her eyes onto his bare forearm. “Please be all right. I don’t know what would have become of me if you hadn’t walked into my life when you did. You saved me, Fletcher.”
Just then, his finger twitched under hers and her skin prickled everywhere. “Fletcher, it’s me. I’m here. Try to open your eyes.” He shook his head slowly back and forth, enough to spark a tiny fragment of hope. “You’re going to be fine. The doctor said the bullet went straight through and didn’t hit any major organs.”
Fletcher opened his eyes and stared up at her for a long moment. She wasn’t even sure if he recognized her. Her heart was beating like a drum.
“You saved me, too,” he said at last, groggily. “And I don’t just mean from Zeb.”
Jo stared at him in disbelief, her emotions flooding her senses until she felt as if she might collapse from the weight of them. She leaned down to hug and kiss him. “Oh, Fletcher, thank goodness you’re all right.”
He pulled her in for a kiss and held her as their lips joined tenderly. “What happened to Zeb?” he asked, rubbing his temple.
“Deputy Anderson came and arrested him, took him to the county jail after the doctor made sure he was all right. He just has a bump on his head that’ll be sore for a while.”
Laughing quietly, then wincing from the pain it caused, Fletcher squeezed Jo’s hand. “Now they can call you The Bruiser. It’s time I retired the title anyway.”
“Retired it,” she repeated, not quite understanding his meaning.
A knock sounded at the door and Deputy Anderson walked in. “Marshal Collins, glad to see you’re awake.”
“Thanks,” Fletcher replied. “What’s up?”
Anderson removed his hat and turned it over in his hands a few times. “That’s what I came here to find out. Mrs. O’Malley sent for me.”
Fletcher gazed up at Jo, his eyes filling with concern. She squeezed his hand one more time, then stood up from the chair, feeling nervous butterflies invade her belly. “I called Deputy Anderson here so that I could confess my crime.”
Fletcher tried to lean up on his elbows. “Jo, you don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do. I need to tell him this, or I won’t be able to live with myself. It’s the right thing to do.”
Fully prepared to be handcuffed and dragged off to jail, Jo turned to face Deputy Anderson.
Fletcher tried to protest one more time. “Jo, please, don’t—”
“I’m Six-Shooter Hank,” she said quickly. “I was the one who broke into Zeb’s store that night. Only I wasn’t there to rob him. I was there to shoot him.”
Anderson gaped at Fletcher, as if he were searching for directions about what to say. Fletcher shook his head back and forth on the pillow. “Jo, you shouldn’t have done that.
”
“Yes, I should have. I can’t let you keep my secret. You’ll hate yourself for it, and I care about you too much to let you live with that.”
Fletcher blinked a few times, a hint of a smile grazing his colorless lips. “I haven’t told her yet,” he said to Anderson.
Jo whirled around. “Told me what?”
His sleepy eyes glimmered in the lantern light. “While you were on the train to Newton, I got a wire from a lawman friend of mine in Chicago. Zeb’s real name is Jack Curtis. Stone and Greer were only two of the names he’s used. We’re looking into the rest.” Fletcher wet his lips and paused for a break. His voice was raspy with fatigue. He had to speak slowly.
“Zeb’s been wanted in Illinois and in three other states for murder and theft among other things, and with the evidence I found in his house, he’ll be convicted for a lot more than that. There was a one thousand-dollar reward out for his capture.”
“A reward? Are you telling me that—”
“Yes, ma’am,” Anderson interrupted. “He was wanted dead or alive, so you won’t be going to jail, even if you had shot him that night. The way things stand now, you’ll be collecting a thousand dollars, seeing as it was you who cuffed him and dragged him all the way back to town. And that couldn’t have been easy. He ain’t no lightweight.”
Jo collapsed onto the chair, too shocked to believe it. “I had no idea.”
Anderson replaced his hat on his head. “Is that all you wanted me for, ma’am? To tell me about what you did that night?”
“Yes, and to thank you, of course.”
Anderson smiled and tipped his hat. “My pleasure, ma’am. Take care, now.” He turned and left the room.
Overwhelmed, Jo held Fletcher’s hand. “What will Elizabeth do?”
“My sister’s a tough lady,” he replied. “She’ll start over. We both will.”
Jo struggled with a painful yearning that was squeezing around her heart, a yearning that would stay with her and plague her forever, she was certain. She loved this man so much, she would have given her life for him tonight. How would she survive if he decided to pack up and leave Dodge?
Tempting the Marshal: (A Western Historical Romance) (Dodge City Brides Series Book 2) Page 23
