Catch a Fallen Angel

by Maureen Child

  She climbed the steps slowly, awkwardly, and Gabe fell in behind, just in case she toppled over backward. He should have known better. She was up the steps, across the boardwalk, and back in the restaurant in a flash.

  She made a man feel damned unnecessary.

  Right behind her, he followed her across the dining room and into the kitchen. She paused briefly and turned around to look at him. "I've got a few things to do upstairs."

  And she looked like she was damn anxious to get started. Now what could put a flush of color in her cheeks and a sparkle like that back in her eyes? After Sugar had left, Maggie had been plainly furious. Now, she looked happy and excited. Just what kind of shopping had she been doing? He waited, hoping for some kind of hint, and was sorely disappointed.

  Maggie took a deep breath and said, "While I'm busy, maybe you could fill the oil lamps in the dining room and then fix that loose step out front?"

  “I can," he said as his gaze dropped to the crate she held clutched to her chest. Damned if he wasn't curious as to what was inside it.

  As if she knew what he was thinking, she tightened .her grip on the box and took a backward step closer to the staircase that led to her second-story living quarters.

  "Well, that's good, then." Another step backward. “I’ll uh…see you later this afternoon, all right?"

  And before he could say anything or ask any questions, she turned and headed up the stairs without looking back. He walked the bottom of the stairs and watched her go, his gaze once again dropping to the swing of her hips and the tip of her long braid that swung back and forth like a clock's pendulum.

  She entered her room and closed the door firmly behind her. He even thought he heard the tumblers of a lock click into place.

  What the hell was she up to?

  Chapter Five

  Dead men shouldn't have to work this hard.

  Grumbling under his breath, Gabe told himself maybe he'd made a mistake in taking the Devil's offer. At the time, two more months of life had sounded like a good idea. Which just served to prove how wrong a man could be.

  He set the last of the refilled oil lamps into its slot on the wagon-wheel chandelier then leaned back to look over his handiwork. In the late afternoon sunlight, the brass lamps sparkled and shone like a gold field. Tiny flames flickered and danced beneath the glass globes and wavering shadows played on the unpainted plank walls.

  Shaking his head, he pulled the rope that lifted the chandelier into position on the ceiling, then secured it to the brass hook on the wall. Then, tired of his own company, he walked out onto the boardwalk, leaned one shoulder against a porch post, and stared out at the town of Regret.

  People walking, hurrying along on their errands, occasionally tossed him a curious glance, and he knew they were wondering about him. Strangers in a small town always excited curiosity. But even that curiosity wasn't enough, it seemed, to draw them into the restaurant.

  Looking over his shoulder into the empty building, he told himself it was a wonder Maggie was able to keep this place alive. He hadn't seen an actual real customer in the two days he'd been there. Hell, if anything, the citizens of Regret tended to walk an extra wide path around the restaurant, as if afraid that someone might drag them inside and force them to eat. Apparently, Maggie's cooking had a helluva reputation.

  And instead of doing something about it, like learning to cook without setting things on fire, what was she doing? Hiding upstairs in her living quarters doing…what?

  All day, he’d heard the sounds of furniture scraping across the floor, heavy objects being dropped, and once, even snatches of a song Maggie was singing in a completely flat tone. He shook his head again. If she wasn't worried about the damned restaurant, why was he?

  Folding his arms across his chest, he told himself that Maggie's business—or lack of it—wasn’t his problem. If it was, of course, he'd have one or two ideas on how to draw people in. It took more than good food to make a restaurant popular. It required a little more atmosphere than unpainted plank walls and bare floors and windows.

  There were a lot of things that could be done to spruce the place up a bit and make it more welcoming to potential customers.

  But…he was only here for two months. And he'd be better served to just do the job he'd promised to do and leave the worrying to the living. Besides, Maggie hadn't asked for his help, and remembering how she'd brushed his offer of assistance aside only that morning, he had the distinct feeling his suggestions wouldn't be welcome.

  His thoughts were scattered by the sounds of children's laughing shouts. Gabe turned his head to look up the street and found himself smiling. At least twenty kids were running down the street headed for home.

  "Some things never change," he muttered, and remembered how it had felt to be turned loose on a Friday afternoon with nothing to do all weekend.

  Then his gaze narrowed on one of the kids. A boy, walking alone, behind everyone else. Head bowed, he still managed to keep a wistful eye on his schoolmates.

  "Jake,” he said to himself and wondered why the boy wasn’t yipping it up with the others. He kept his gaze locked on the child as he walked toward the restaurant. Unexpectedly, something inside him twisted a bit in sympathy for the kid. He looked so small. So alone, in the busy street. No one paid him any attention. No one seemed to notice him at all.

  Jake shuffled his feet, the toes of his shoes scuffing at the dirt, sending small clouds of dust up in front of him as he walked. And, since his eyes were downcast, the boy didn’t see Gabe until he had climbed the steps.

  "Hi."

  "Hi, yourself," Gabe said, shifting position so he could watch the boy more closely. "Something wrong?”

  "Uh-uh," he said and shook his head.

  But the droop of his shoulders and the hangdog look of him belied that denial.

  Sighing softly, Gabe took a seat on the top step and motioned for the boy to sit beside him. Hell, he'd never had much experience with kids. Working all night at a poker table pretty much assured a man he wouldn’t be running into a lot of children. But there was something about this boy that reached into his untouched heart and made him want to help. Maybe, he thought, it was because the boy had so much of his mother in him.

  He looked at him now. Same sparkling brown eyes, alive with interest. Same nose, same wide, smiling mouth, although at the moment, a smile was nowhere to be found on his face. Was that it? he wondered. Was he drawn to this child because he saw Maggie in him? And if that was true, what did it say about his feelings for Maggie?

  Oh, better not to think of that right now. Or ever. As a dead man, he really didn't have much of a future.

  "So," he said softly, shifting his gaze from the boy to make him more comfortable. "Want to tell me what's wrong?"

  "Nothin'." He shrugged narrow shoulders and seemed to shrink in on himself further.

  Well, who said talking to a kid would be easy? Together, they stared out at the street and Gabe waited a second or two before asking a different question. "If nothing's wrong, how come you weren't running with the others?"

  Jake slanted him a look, then ducked his head again.

  "I'm too little," he said in a clearly disgusted tone.

  Gabe smiled inwardly, but thought it wise to hide it on the outside. “Too little for what?"

  "Everything."

  "That takes up a lot of territory," Gabe commented.

  Jake swung his belted schoolbooks back and forth between his upraised knees. He kept his gaze on those books as if his life depended on it. "They're going down to the creek," he finally said, then turned to look up at Gabe. “And Mom don't allow me to go."

  "Ah…" He nodded thoughtfully, then pointed out, “It's a little cold to go swimming."

  "Oh, they're not swimming, the boy told him, "it's only sometimes they fall in on accident."

  "Sure," Gabe said with a smile, imagining just how many "accidents" those kids would manage to have. "Do you know how to swim?”

  Disguste
d again, Jake said, "No. Mom was gonna teach me last summer but she was too busy, and then she said how swimming ain't as important as schooling so she got hold of some books for me instead.”

  "And you spent the summer doing schoolwork?”

  "Yeah."

  "And you still say 'ain't'?" He grinned at the boy conspiratorially.

  A like grin spread across the kid's features. "Not when Mom can hear me.”

  "Smart boy."

  “That's what she says," Jake complained. "But I don't want to be smart, Gabe. I want to know how to swim and do the stuff everybody else does."

  "What stuff?"

  Well, that question set loose a tornado of information. Jake wanted to learn how to ride and how to play baseball and how to hunt and how to do so many other things, they were lost in the torrent of words.

  Gabe nodded and listened while the boy talked a blue streak. He felt for the kid. He remembered all too well what it felt like to not really belong. Oh, he'd known how to swim and do the other things that were so important to Jake. But with Gabe it had been different. His father was a professional gambler and the parents of the "nice” children didn't want their kids playing with a gambler's boy. Plus, every couple of years, Eamon Donovan would announce it was time to move again, usually just a step or two ahead of the sheriff. And Gabe would have a new school, with new kids, and he'd have to start trying to belong all over again.

  Which probably explained why he'd left school at thirteen, never to go back.

  He frowned to himself at the memories and pushed them aside. The past didn't matter anymore. It was long gone and impossible to change.

  Jake's world, however, was wide open. Anything could happen. And looking down into those brown eyes, shining with hope and anticipation, Gabe decided then and there that as long as he was in Regret, he'd help the kid all he could. After all, what else did he have to do for the next two months? Smiling to himself, he interrupted the still-talking boy.

  "So what are you supposed to be doing now?” he asked.

  Jake gulped a breath, tossed his hair out of his eyes, and scowled. "Homework."

  "How about we put that off for a while?"

  A flash of eagerness danced in the boy's eyes briefly. Then it disappeared again. "Where's Mom?"

  "Upstairs," Gabe told him, and if in proof, came the distinct sound of something else being dragged across the floor. "What is she doing up there?” he wondered aloud.

  “There's no telling," Jake said solemnly.

  Gabe laughed and stood up. Apparently he wasn't alone. Even her son had trouble figuring out Maggie Benson. And for the moment, that was just fine. He had other things in mind, anyway. Brushing off the seat of his pants, he said, "Why don't you go put your books inside and we'll go do some man stuff."

  Big brown eyes got wider as Jake leaped to his feet. “Man stuff? What kind of stuff?”

  Gabe scraped one hand across his jaw and said, "Well, I could use a shave." He drew his head back, stared at the boy for a long minute, then reached out and touched his jaw. Nodding to himself, he added, "And so could you."

  His eyes were surely going to pop out of his head.

  "Me? A shave?”

  "It's time," Gabe said solemnly. "You don’t want to be the only kid in school with a beard, do you?"

  Jake laughed and the sound was pure pleasure. Gabe had to wonder why it had taken dying for him to notice how much fun a kid could be. While he waited in the shade of the overhang, he told himself that this really meant nothing. He was just being nice to a lonely kid.

  It was simply a bonus that being nice to Jake left him feeling better than he had in years.

  #

  Dolly Trent hung a Closed sign on the front door of the mercantile then stepped out onto the boardwalk and closed the door behind her firmly. She didn't bother to lock it. What if someone needed something and didn't have the time to wait for her to come back? No. This way, they could just go inside, get what they needed and leave her a note. In a town the size of Regret, folks learned to take care of each other. To look out for each other. Which was just another reason why one particular female had Dolly mad enough to…well, she didn't know what.

  But before she faced that female down, she'd try one more time to talk to the woman's husband. If Redmond could only find a little backbone, Dolly wouldn't have to talk to Sugar at all.

  Glancing down, she smoothed her palms over the fall of her skirt, tugged at the hem of her waist-length jacket, then set off full steam down the boardwalk.

  "Afternoon, Dolly,” someone called out and she half turned to smile a greeting. She didn't stop to chat though. Her mind was far too busy with just what she was going to say to Redmond Harmon once she got hold of him.

  Her temper had simmered all day until it had finally worked into a boiling stew. Something had to be done about Sugar Harmon and it was time Redmond found a spine and did it.

  Kansas Halliday lounged in a chair outside his gunsmith shop, his long legs stretched across the boardwalk. Now Kansas was the laziest man God ever created. It had been said that the last time anyone had seen him move voluntarily was the night four years back when his bed had caught fire. And even then, he'd only moved from his bedroom to his chair on the boardwalk.

  If folks wanted to get past they either went through him or around him. So it was a measure of just how mad Dolly looked when Kansas sat up straight and yanked his legs back out of her way.

  Dolly sailed past, her skirts flapping in her wake, heels clipping loudly on the wooden walk. She passed the milliner seamstress without so much as a glance at the pretty red hat in the window, then stomped on by the saloon and the jailhouse and everything else that stood between her and her go the bank.

  Once there, she walked through the open doorway and paused on the threshold to let her eyes get accustomed to the dimmer light. Three people stood in line in front of the teller cage. A wall clock chimed out three bells and she turned her head toward the far corner of the building where she knew she would find Redmond Harmon.

  It was as if he sensed her presence, because he lifted his gaze from the stack of papers he'd been studying and looked directly at her. Dolly couldn't be sure from a distance, but she was fairly certain she saw sweat break out on his forehead.

  Good.

  Marching across the gleaming wood floor, she walked straight to his desk and sat down in the chair opposite him without waiting for an invitation.

  Redmond swallowed hard, glanced at his employees long enough to ensure they weren't watching him, then shifted his gaze back to her. "Dolly," he said carefully, "this is an unexpected pleasure."

  "Is it?” she asked, keeping her voice low enough that only the two of them would know what was being said.

  His mouth flattened out and she watched his Adam's apple bob up and down a couple of times before he spoke again. "What seems to be the problem?”

  "The problem is that wife of yours, as you damn well know."

  “Now, Dolly—“

  "Don't you 'now, Dolly' me, Redmond!” She leaned one arm across his desk, scattering the papers, and tapped one fingertip against the pile. "I came here to tell you that if you don't take that woman in hand, I intend to."

  His pale gray eyes went even paler at the thought.

  And Dolly almost felt sorry for him. Almost. Sugar was a handful, true, but by thunder, someone had to do something. Maggie had enough on her plate that she didn't need that woman's viperous tongue wagging every blasted minute.

  “Sugar is a woman of strong opinions," he said and eased his papers out from under Dolly’s fingers.

  "Her tongue’s sharper than her opinions…and that's what's brought me here today." With an effort, she bottled up her temper, reminding herself that it wasn't Redmond she was furious with, but his wife.

  He winced slightly. "This is about Maggie again, isn't it?"

  "You're darn tootin' it is."

  “Dolly…"

  “That wife of yours has hated Maggie for years
.”

  "’Hate' is a strong word."

  “But appropriate."

  "Perhaps," he admitted with a sigh. Leaning back in his chair, he folded his hands across his chest and fiddled nervously with his watch chain.

  "I want to know why," she said, though she had an idea or two of her own.

  "I'm not sure myself," he said with a shake of his head. "All I know is that while Maggie was living out on that little farm of hers, life was easier. Sugar's only got this bad since Maggie moved to town two years ago." He sat forward in his chair, placed his still-folded hands on the desktop, and looked directly into Dolly's eyes. "And I don't know why. She won't talk about her to me."

  "Well, she's talking to everyone else," Dolly snapped.

  "I know.”

  "What are you going to do about it, Redmond?”

  "What can I do?" he asked, showing the first signs of irritation.

  "You might try looking for your spine," Dolly told him hotly.

  He pulled back and gave her a stunned stare. “There's no call to be insulting," he said.

  She looked at him for a long minute or two, then nodded slowly. "You're right."

  "I am?" Real surprise colored his tone.

  "Yep," Dolly said and stood up. "I never should have come here to you, Redmond. This is something I can only settle with Sugar herself."

  "Oh, now Dolly," he said, clearly disturbed at the very notion of the two women facing off. "I don't think that's a very good idea."

  "That's the difference between you and me, Redmond. I think the only way to solve a problem is to face it head-on and then plow it under."

  With that, she turned and swept out of the bank, leaving Redmond Harmon wishing there was a hotel in town, because life at home was going to be pure misery for a while.

  #

  “Well now," Bass Stevens asked loudly, "how's that feel?"

  Jake reached up and rubbed his right cheek. "Feels smooth," he said and grinned at Gabe.

  The fact that his cheeks had been smooth as glass before the shave didn't matter a damn, Gabe told himself. All that mattered now was that Jake felt all grown-up. He'd sat in that barber chair, had his hair cut and a shave just like every other man who walked through the door.