Her thoughts drifted to the way his dark hair curled a little right behind his ears, and turned up at his collar. And she wondered how he’d gotten a tiny scar, slightly below and to the left of his bottom lip.
A knock on her door nearly jolted her out of the rocking chair. She sprang to her feet, and the book reports scattered at her feet.
“Miss Tate, I mean Amy, it’s me, Dent.”
Her heart lunged to a wild speed, not out of fear, now, but excitement. “Just a moment.” She bit her lips to add a little color to them, assumed her cheeks were pink enough, and hurried to the door. A swirl of little snowflakes followed him inside. “Oh, it’s snowing? It’s only October.”
“Flurries,” he said, pulling off his gloves. “Probably won’t stick.”
“Can I get you some coffee? I have some on the stove.”
“Yes ma’am, I sure could do with a cup.”
“Please make yourself at home.”
He peeled out of his coat and laid it across the back of a chair while Amy poured two cups.
“Say, what happened here? Everything all right?” He walked over to the mess she’d left of the book reports.
“That’s nothing. I was grading them by the fire. Your knock startled me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” He immediately bent down and gathered up the papers. When he stood again, she was holding his coffee. They traded items, and she walked the papers over to her kitchen table. From behind her, he said haltingly, “We … missed you at supper tonight.”
Amy couldn’t stop a silly grin. She picked up her own coffee and joined him by the fire. “Sometimes teachers have homework too.” She let her eyes travel from his square jaw, covered in a little razor stubble, to his hat. He realized his mistake, snatched it off, and let her take it from him. She hung it on the hook at the door and kept her back to him for a moment. “So, what brings you by this evening?”
“Well, I guess you could say I’ve gotten into such a habit of walking you home, I felt like I ought to check on you.”
She turned slowly and assessed him over the top of her glasses. “Ought to?” she dead-panned. “That’s very commendable.” But it wasn’t. She didn’t want to be a burden. She wanted him to want to come by, and not in the peace-officer sense.
He chuckled and scratched his nose.
“Did I say something funny?”
“No.” He grinned sideways, a most adorable smile that made Amy’s breath catch in her chest. “You just have this way of eyin’ me sometimes, over the top of your spectacles. Like you approve of me...and you don’t, at the same time.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she ambled over to the kitchen table and set down her cup.
“It’s downright...endearing.” He quickly took a sip of his coffee, but watched her over the top of the cup.
The compliment flowed over Amy like warm butter, and she wanted to melt with it. “Thank you,” she whispered, though she hadn’t meant to, but her voice failed her.
“Well, I guess,” he gulped one more sip, “I’ll be going now.”
“You just got here.”
He walked up to her, leaned in, and set his cup down on the table behind her, but then he didn’t pull back. He searched her face earnestly, his dark eyes sparkling with...desire? He towered over her, but she wasn’t afraid. She was never afraid with him.
“I should definitely be going.” But he didn’t move. The huskiness in his voice raised goosebumps on her arms. He picked up a strand of her hair, working it gently between his fingers. Amy realized she was breathing fast. So was he. He swallowed. “Are you afraid of me?”
She couldn’t find her voice at all and shook her head.
“I thought when I took you to dinner the other night, I might get you out of my system. Instead…”
“Instead?”
“Instead, I wake up every morning lookin’ forward to dinner with Doc and Susan…and you.”
Amy felt faint. His gaze bored into her, held her completely still, except for her racing heart.
“This isn’t part of my plan, Amy.”
He started lowering his head to hers and she closed her eyes. She felt his breath and tilted her head up more. Then his lips touched hers. Pressed harder. His hand went to her cheek and they deepened the kiss. Lightning shot through Amy, and suddenly she was in Dent’s arms, and his mouth possessed hers. He drank her in, long, slow, hypnotically, and then pulled away. “Oh, dang,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers.
She should have laughed, but something similar and nonsensical rolled around in her brain. Oh, my goodness...
He slid his hands to her waist and, after a moment, pulled back a little, caressing her ribs with his thumbs. “Gah, you’re just a little bitty thing.” He shook his head and stepped away, his brow creased, as if she were some strange, unidentified creature. He shook his head again, and grabbed his coat. “Miss Tate...I, uh...I mean, Amy…” He sucked on his cheek, thinking.
“For a man who’s been shot three times and stabbed five, slept too often on the ground, in the cold, and nearly starved to death once, you do seem to lose your confidence around women.”
He shrugged into his coat and sighed. “Nope. Just around you.”
Amy blinked, taken aback by his sudden directness. Those butterflies took flight again, wild and out of control.
“I like you, Amy.”
She was smart enough to know for a man like Dent, he was speaking volumes, but she wouldn’t read more into the simple declaration than there might be. They could take this one breath, one step, one day at a time. “I like you, too, Dent.”
“But I have to figure this out.”
“I understand.” And she did. Amy was a fork in the road. She wasn’t part of his plan. But she wanted to be.
He grinned, and nodded firmly, like he’d come to a conclusion. “All right then.”
22
Like a good lackey, Dent showed up in the hotel promptly at seven in the morning. He surveyed the lobby, noting nearly every horizontal surface was covered in velvet. Too fancy for his taste. He didn’t see any folks milling around, though, so he walked up to the clerk, a stooped, balding old man who was stuffing mail into a wall of boxes.
“Excuse me.”
The gentleman swung around, and immediately recognition lit his face. “Dent Hernandez.” He set the mail on the counter and reached for Dent’s hand. “I heard you was in town. It’s good to see ya, boy.”
It took Dent a second, but, as they shook hands, he remembered the sharp, hooked nose and receding hairline. “Mr. Kilkenny? It’s been so long, I ’bout forgot what you looked like.”
“Yeah,” the old-man grinned sheepishly, and showed some missing teeth. “I’ve aged some. I reckon you haven’t seen me since I bought your pa’s spread.”
Whatever good-natured mood Dent thought he had going dissipated like smoke. “About that. How’d you come to sell it to Coker? I thought you were rarin’ to go and start your own ranch.”
The old man shrugged and flinched, like he’d sucked on a sour lemon. “Turned out I ain’t much of a rancher. All that hard work. Constant, too. It never stopped. I got plumb wore out mending fences, chasing cows. Stupid critters, they don’t stay where you put ’em.”
“I have been told you need good fences when you run cattle.” Dent pushed his hat back a little, thinking. “So what’s Coker doing with the place?”
“Nothin’, that I know of.”
Why would Coker buy the ranch, and then just let it sit there? He sure wasn’t the kind of man to put money out and not expect a fair amount in return. But he’d already had the property, what, six years? Dent was missing something here, and it frustrated him. “Well, anyhow, I’m here to meet some gents from the Central Pacific. You seen ’em?”
“Sure. They’re in the dining room having breakfast.”
Dent slapped the counter. “All right then. Good to talk to you, Kilkenny.”
Dent had never seen railroad men in any
thing other than suits. The two young men enjoying a hearty breakfast were dressed more like miners. And he noticed right away, sitting in the corner, two packs with small shovels tied to them.
“Gentlemen, you with the railroad? I’m Sheriff Hernandez.”
One young man with dark hair and a bushy mustache immediately wiped his mouth and stood to shake hands. “Yes, I’m Harry Lambert, and this is Quitman Thaney.”
Thaney, clean-shaven, but also young, both men being in their late twenties, nodded at Dent. He did not stand, disinclined apparently to leave his breakfast.
“Mayor Coker said you’d be guiding us out to Gilmer Crossroads?” Lambert asked.
“I suppose so.”
“Very good, very good.” The man clapped his hands in a somewhat dainty fashion, that didn’t fit with the tough, canvas breeches or flannel shirt he was wearing. “We’ll be with you shortly, then, Sheriff.” He shot a questioning glance at Thaney, who shoveled one last bite of eggs into his mouth.
“I’m ready.” He wiped his mouth and stood, unfolding a surprisingly tall, spindly frame from the chair. He stood almost eye-to-eye with Dent. “You have our horses, or do we need to get some from the livery?”
“I’ve horses and a pack mule. Canteens full of water and three days worth of food.”
“Wonderful, Sheriff, thank you,” Lambert practically sang. “Let’s be on our way then.” He marched over to his bag in the corner.
Thaney leaned in a little closer to Dent and spoke out of the side of his mouth. “Yeah, he’s a fancy pants. Rich parents and all, but he’s one of the smartest men I know. He’ll grow on you.”
Somehow, Dent doubted that.
Initially, the men had told Dent they wanted to start at Gilmer Crossroads, but, when the trio rode past a particularly odd-shaped rock formation, Lambert cried out with delight. “Look at that, Thaney.”
The two men dismounted and started jabbering excitedly, picking up rocks, pointing at the rolling, sage-covered hills, and studying the scattered rock atolls surrounding them. Dent couldn’t make any sense of what they were saying. He caught a few words, like anticline, tertiary, and stratographic something-or-other. For all he understood, they could have been speaking Greek.
Bored, he hooked a leg around his saddle horn, and watched as the men pulled small hammers from their packs and went to tapping and whacking on random rocks. Drumming his fingers and wondering if he was going to be stuck like this all day, he saw the edge of a map sticking out of Thaney’s saddlebag. The man had studied it intently as they trudged out to this section of Fremont County. Dent didn’t need the map to tell him where they were. A half-mile due West would bring them to his pa’s spread, now owned by Mayor Coker. Ben’s place, his spread, was straight ahead, and Gilmer Crossroads was north-east another half-mile. He didn’t think their present location was an accident, after all. It would make sense for the mayor to acquire Ben’s ranch. The more land he had, the more land he could sell right-of-ways to the Union Pacific, if the tracks went across his property.
But what did hammering on rocks have to do with laying track?
Dent had seen railroads come in before. These men had no surveying equipment with them at all. Maybe eight years as a lawman had made him too suspicious of everyone, including the innocent...but he didn’t think so. He leaned forward and rested an elbow on his knee. “You boys are, what, trying to pick a route or...?” he trailed off, offering them the chance to explain.
He didn’t miss the quick glance Thaney shot at Lambert before he answered. “Well, specifically, we have to determine the best possible areas in which to search for a route for the spur line. Stable soil, drainage, inclines, topographical features, things like that help us winnow down to more specific areas.”
“Sheriff,” Lambert stepped forward, “this is a painfully boring process and we’ll be wandering around for a few days. We don’t expect you to stay. Our apologies if Mayor Coker gave you that impression. We’ll be fine on our own.”
“We do have a map,” Thaney added, “and we are adept at reading it.”
“Uhhmm. I see.” Truthfully, the mayor had said get them out to Gilmer then leave. Dent didn’t figure a half-mile made much difference. Besides, he needed to pack his saddlebag for a trip to Cheyenne. “All right, then, stay warm.”
Dent tugged on Ginger and pointed her back to town. One thing was certain: if Coker thought he could get his greedy, manicured hands on Ben’s ranch, he had a rude awakening coming.
23
A single snowflake landed on Dent’s glove-covered hand as he tugged on the noose hooked securely around the 193-lb. bag of sand. For some reason, the flake captured his attention, and he took an instant to admire its miraculous intricacies before crossing the scaffold to the gallows lever. He supposed it didn’t matter what the weather was like when he hung a man, but this cold, gray day with roiling clouds and a wind mean enough to slice a man in two seemed unnecessarily cruel. He jerked the handle, the floor fell open, and the burlap bag plunged violently to the end of the rope.
Down below, two deputies stopped the bag’s erratic swinging and wrestled it free from the noose.
Dent was hanging Earl Flagg today; tried and found guilty of killing his wife for philandering. Normally, hanging a criminal didn’t bother Dent. Violent, despicable men, men who had been convicted of murder or rape, took the gallows walk. They deserved to swing. But Earl was different. He’d never hurt anyone until the day he came home and found his wife fooling around with a farmhand. A scuffle had ensued and Earl had brained the louse with a posthole digger. Dent wasn’t excusing the murder, but it seemed to him hanging should be reserved for the career criminals or particularly heinous crimes.
Or maybe he was just getting tired of dealing death.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and wondered what was the matter with him?
Specializing in dying is no way to live.
“Dent, you all right?” the deputy called up from beneath him.
“Yep, everything’s fine.” He pulled the rope back up through the trap door. “Tell the judge I’m ready.”
Several minutes later, a group of deputies marched out of the courthouse, Earl Flagg in the middle of them. Heavy-built, head down, shoulders bent, he and his escort cut through a meager crowd of spectators and ascended the steps. Dent took Flagg by the shoulder and positioned him over the trap door, assessed the position, then moved him over another inch.
“You Hernandez, the one they say ain’t never botched a hanging?”
Dent didn’t acknowledge Flagg. Instead, he slapped a leather belt around the man’s thighs.
“I seen a botched hanging once,” Flagg continued, his voice strong but shaky. “It was a terrible sight to behold. That man’s neck musta stretched two feet if it was an inch.”
Dent buckled the belt and stood up. Earl Flagg was a short, heavy man, with a blubbery neck. Fat there could be a problem if Dent had made even the smallest mistake in his calculations. The knot could slip. But it wouldn’t. “You’ll go quick. You got my word on it.”
Flagg’s gray eyes filled with tears, and he swallowed. “Thank you. I deserve what I’m gettin’. I’m just scared of sufferin’. I’m sorry for what I did, truly sorry, and I asked God to forgive me. Reckon He’s the only judge who matters now.”
“I reckon,” Dent muttered, stepping away. He motioned for the jailer to finish the ceremonial steps.
“Any last words?” the jailer asked.
Earl Flagg thought about it for a moment then whispered simply, “No.”
The deputy nodded and draped a thick, black hood over Flint’s head. Then Dent stepped in and dropped the noose on him. Carefully, skillfully, he felt for Flint’s spine and twisted the rope two inches to the left, tucking the bulk of the knot beneath the man’s ear. “Don’t move,” he said softly, “and the snap will be clean.”
Dent pushed through the deputies, the chaplain, a judge, and a reporter with a pad and pencil, and grabbed hold of the l
ever. He shifted so he could see Flagg and the trap door.
The judge and the chaplain said their piece. Dent uncharacteristically made one last check of the knot’s position then returned to the lever. The judge nodded at him, and Dent snatched the handle back with a determined jerk.
The trapdoor fell away and Flagg slipped into the Great Beyond.
A perfect execution.
As Dent had known it would be.
The men on the platform filed toward the stairs, and slapped Dent on the shoulder with robust congratulations. Most men reacted that way, a few ladies, too, but most women recoiled when they learned of his profession. As if being near him was like standing next to the Angel of Death.
On which side would Amy come down? Eventually, he’d have to give her the chance to choose. He wasn’t anticipating the moment with any eagerness.
Dent stared at the knife in his hand, long, sharp, dangerous. He’d caught one just like this in the left shoulder blade a couple of years back. Suddenly the band started playing, jolting him back to the bright lanterns and bustling crowd of townsfolk at the fall festival.
Amy touched his arm. “Are you sure you want to do this? I believe Mr. McGyver would take your place, if you’d rather not.”
Dent glanced across the table at Coker, who had his knife poised eagerly above a large, round pumpkin.
He smirked at Dent. “This should be easy for you, Sheriff. The pumpkin’s not going to try to resist arrest.”
The gathering crowd roared with laughter. Dent’s jaw clenched. Not only could he do this, but he wanted to do this. And not just because Coker thought participating in something as frivolous as pumpkin carving was a punishment. He came back to Amy and gave her a wry smile. He wanted to do this for her. With her.
Shoot, maybe this would put her in the mind for another kiss. He could still taste that last one, and the recollection quickened his pulse. He could use another one now to erase the memory of Flagg’s hanging … or at least dim it for a while. “What are the rules again?”
The Brides of Evergreen Box Set Page 11
