“Titus, don’t forget to tell Consuela I want chicken for dinner.”
Titus paused, looked puzzled for an instant, then nodded. “Chicken? Yes, sir.”
When the door closed, Dillon slipped his Colt back into its holster. “I have a question for you, Fairbanks.”
“How did I find out who you are?”
“Nope. Did you kill Audra’s father?”
The old man’s beady, pale eyes widened, but he quickly tried to cover the response with a stoic mask. “Did she tell you that? It’s a lie. His horse threw him. There were witnesses.”
Dillon reached into his pocket and pulled out the piece of glass he’d found in Drysdale’s saddle. “This is from a whiskey bottle.” He tossed it to Fairbanks, who caught it out of reflex. “Now, the funny thing is, I happen to know whiskey. That is from the bottom of a bottle of Dunville’s Three Crowns Whiskey. An Irish distillery. Somewhat rare. Very expensive.” Dillon aimed a thumb at the bar beside Fairbanks where two Dunville bottles dominated the marble counter. “I doubt anyone else in Evergreen has even one bottle.”
“What whiskey I prefer doesn’t prove a thing.”
“Maybe not, but it’s just enough to give the sheriff cause to open an investigation. You want him poking around, asking questions?”
Fairbanks’s face hardened, revealing his simmering rage. The rattlesnake was stirring, and Dillon was wary.
“While he’s asking questions, maybe you should ask your sweet little wife why she’s lying to you about your rights.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That prenuptial agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. You’re just as much legal owner of Diamond D Ranch as she is. Reckon why she tried to buffalo you?”
Dillon knew what Fairbanks was trying to do and it wouldn’t work. “Is all this about your lust for land or Audra?”
Fairbanks took a long time to answer, his cold stare challenging and intense. When he finally spoke, his words dripped with arrogance. “I’m not a bad-looking man for my age. I’ve got a lot to offer Audra. I’ve told her time and time again she could keep her ranch. I’d help her run it and it would become bigger than her pa ever dreamed. All I wanted was more children.”
“But she kept turning you down. You don’t like to be turned down, do you, Fairbanks?”
“I always get what I want. Eventually. Then you came along. I saw the way she was lookin’ at you in the wagon that day. I tried to be easy with you at first, just run you out of town as a laughingstock. But you wouldn’t go.”
“So you tried to shoot me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The bigger question is how did you know getting Drysdale’s horse to throw him would kill him?”
“I didn’t. He was a big man, failing health. I just wanted to put him in bed for a while so’s I could make things clear to his men. Him dyin’ was just dumb luck.”
“I’ve heard enough.” Sheriff Hernandez stepped into the room, gun drawn. “You were right, Pine. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”
Fairbanks’s eyes narrowed with fury. To his left, a door Dillon hadn’t noticed flew open and Titus leaped into the room, gun drawn. Fairbanks reached for his own. Dent and Dillon reacted. Guns roared four, five, six times. Smoke filled the room. Titus tumbled to the oriental carpet, dead, and silence like the grave settled with him.
Fortunately, the sheriff had taken the ranch hand, and Dillon had gone for Fairbanks. Fairbanks looked at his bloody shoulder and his eyes widened to full moons. His horror at his injury dawning on him, he let out a groan. Then his gaze landed on Titus, face down on the oriental rug, blood seeping from beneath him. Fairbanks screeched, a strange, wild sound, and flung his smoking .44 to the ground as if it were a hot coal. “He did it.” He pointed at Titus. “He’s the one who killed Drysdale.” He clutched his arm. “It was all his idea. I just wanted the old fool laid up—not dead.”
The sheriff stomped over to him. “Well, Titus can’t exactly argue with you now, can he?” He shoved Fairbanks into a leather chair and glanced at the door Titus had burst through. “Consuela, bring me some towels! I got a man shot in here!”
Dillon, his nerves twitchy as telegraph wires in an electrical storm, heard a rustling from behind and spun. Audra and Winston stepped hesitantly into the room. “We heard it all,” Winston said to the moaning Fairbanks. “And we’ll testify against you.”
Consuela burst from the kitchen and handed a stack of red-checked towels to Dent. The robust Mexican woman then made the sign of the cross and spit on Fairbanks, all in one smooth movement. Dillon got the idea it wasn’t the first time the woman had done such. “I no more work here, Señor.”
She stormed from the room, snatching off her apron as if it reviled her. Dent tossed the towels on the desk, keeping one to shove into Fairbanks’s shoulder. The man grimaced, and hissed in pain.
“Quit your belly-aching. You’re not gonna die,” he pressed the old man’s good hand to the towel, “but you will stand trial for murder, attempted murder, assault, and anything else I can come up with.”
“When hell freezes over,” Fairbanks whispered through clenched teeth.
Dent leaned in. “I’ll get ya a blanket.” He pulled the prisoner to his feet. “Pine, you want to help me get him to town?”
Dillon holstered his gun. “With pleasure.”
“I’ll tell.” Fairbanks glared at Dillon. “I’ll tell your father. I’ll wire every newspaper in the country. The black sheep of the family brings another scandal down on his family.”
Winston took a few more steps into the room. “Shut up, old man. Senator Pine’s son is a hero. I’ll wire every newspaper in the country.”
“And so will I.” Audra marched up to Fairbanks and looked him right in the eye. “And I’ll make sure the papers know how you threatened my men . . . and how you tried to manhandle me.”
16
Audra sat on her front porch in the last rays of sunset, rocking, waiting for Dillon, though she had no way of knowing if he would come back. She’d told him to leave; she shouldn’t expect him. Yet he hadn’t left without getting Dent the evidence he needed to arrest Fairbanks for murder.
And he’d nearly been shot for his trouble.
She felt terrible. She owed him so much. Her insides twisted with regret and longing. What if she never saw him again? What if he dropped off Fairbanks and rode out of Wyoming?
“Oh, Pa,” she whispered, “the ranch has never been this lonely. But I hope we’ll get you justice.”
The thought was of little comfort. Nothing would bring Pa back. Would anything bring back Dillon?
“I meddled, Lord. Just like Sarah and Abraham. They didn’t wait on you. Neither did I. I rushed off half-cocked, thinking I’d found the answers. Now look where we are.”
Restless, she rose and sauntered over to the porch post. She leaned a shoulder on it and eyed the new barn. Bigger and better than the one that had burned, the fresh lumber filled the air with pine. But she was back to square one as far as the ranch was concerned.
At least losing it would hurt less than losing Dillon.
She heard the fast clip-clop of a cantering horse and looked toward her gate. Audra’s hand flew to her chest to keep her heart from beating out of her body.
She could feel his gaze long before she could see him clearly. Butterflies cavorting in her stomach, she meandered out to the hitching post and waited. He might not stay, but she would at least get a chance to say thank you . . . and good-bye.
Dillon rode to within a few feet of her and slid from the saddle, his hypnotic blue eyes stealing her will. He approached her, coming so close she could feel his breath on her face. She tried to slow her own breathing, to no avail. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back. I was afraid I wouldn’t get to say thank you.”
“Audra,” he raised his hands as if to grip her shoulders, but dropped them to his side. His throat worked for a moment, till finally he managed
words that came out more like a plea. “Do you really want me to leave?”
What did the future look like if she said no? In a year, would he ride out and take the pieces of her heart with him? Would it just begin a long, painful goodbye? Regardless, she owed him the truth. “Dillon, I have to tell you something. I lied to you about our prenuptial agreement. It’s worthless. You own this ranch with me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He didn’t sound surprised.
“I didn’t want to share. I thought nothing in this world mattered more to me than the Diamond D. Then, when Fairbanks said he was going to go after you,” she closed her eyes, sick over the impact of her greed, “and I’d put you in danger, I knew it wasn’t true anymore.”
He touched her cheek. “Audra, I don’t want to leave either. But I don’t know what staying means.” He took her hand in his. “I’ll be honest, I don’t feel like I’m married because I didn’t get to court you.” He pulled her hand to his chest and covered it with both of his.
When he didn’t continue, she let the spark of hope ignite. “Are you saying you’d like to?”
“If you’ll let me. I don’t know exactly how it’ll work, us being married and all, but I guess we can figure it out.”
Audra swore she could feel her heart melting. If this wasn’t love, she couldn’t imagine how she’d stand under the pressure of the real thing. “Yes, Mr. Pine, you may call on your wife.”
Grinning, Dillon gathered her up in his arms and kissed her gratefully, desperately. Audra felt lightheaded, as if his mere touch stole her senses like a heady drug. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled his body away from hers until, her face in his hands, only their lips touched. She tried to press in again, but he moved back, holding her shoulders.
“There’s one thing.” His lips twisted into a cocky grin, “when you ask me to marry you again, I want a preacher to do the honors.”
“When I ask y—?” Audra bit down on the argument and decided, for once, to practice a little patience and obedience. She fluttered her eyelashes at him in a decidedly feminine manner. “Whatever you say, my husband.”
Dillon’s eyebrows rose and he’d never looked more pleased. “We just might be able to run this ranch together, after all.”
She bit her bottom lip trying to hide the grin, but it wouldn’t be denied. “We just might.”
A Proposal So Magical
Part II -- "A Proposal So Magical" -- Evergreen’s sheriff, Dent Hernandez, has fallen in love and now actually has to do something about it or risk losing the woman he loves.
Once, the toughest lawman in the territory, Dent has been brought to his knees by love and he knows it’s time to ask Amy to marry him. He has to make the proposal in a truly magical and courageous way. A handsome ghost from her past, though, has designs of his own on Amy.
Hunting outlaws was never this hard…
Matthew 16:26
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul?
Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Prologue
Amy Tate drifted around the empty schoolhouse, picking up slates and daydreaming about her handsome lawman, Dent Hernandez. He had finally settled into his role as Evergreen’s interim sheriff, telling her just last night how much peace he was finding in the job. He didn’t miss being a U.S. Marshal. He thought he could let the lies and betrayal of the past go and look ahead. To a future with her. And then he’d said, “I love you, Amy. You’re healing me.”
Her heart swelled with peace and joy. “Thank You, Lord,” she whispered. “You’ve brought him so far. And I know You’ll bring him all the way.”
Mindful of her injured shoulder and the repugnant sling, she hugged the slates, trying not to powder her dress with chalk. Soon she would be Mrs. Dent Hernandez—though no actual date had been discussed yet. He hadn’t even officially asked. They had just sort of fallen into planning their future. Not that he needed to drop to one knee or anything so showy, she supposed. They were engaged by a tacit agreement.
Surely that was good enough.
The lack of a formal request must be her fault. Dent wasn’t pushing a date because Amy had said she wouldn’t wear a wedding dress with her arm all but strapped to her side. She rotated her left shoulder. It pinched some still, but the muscle there was healing, enough that she could dress and do some chores without having to live in the sling all the time now. Soon she would cast it off for good and get on with her life.
She was almost whole again. In body and spirit. She wasn’t afraid to be alone anymore. The nightmares were gone now, too. Dent was healing her as well.
One day soon, she’d wake up to his dark eyes, silky black hair, and handsome grin right beside her, and she would never be without him again—
The soft thud of a horse’s hooves outside set to flight a thousand butterflies in her breast.
Dent came by often after school to escort her home. Giddy with joy and desire, she dropped the slates on a desk and rushed to the door.
Only, the young man who pushed it open as she reached out...was not Dent.
1
Dent Hernandez, clutching his hat in his hands, walked almost on tiptoe down the aisle of the empty church. He couldn’t see letting his boot heels disturb the quiet. A special quiet. Holy.
About halfway down, he stopped. Where was he going exactly? Hanging on the back wall, a large wooden cross, rugged, rough-sawed, about six feet tall, dominated the rustic sanctuary. He was a little intimidated by it, the sacrifice behind it, but not afraid of it.
He eyed the simple wooden pulpit Pastor Wills stood behind on Sundays. The man sure could rip loose with some heart-tugging sermons...or maybe that was just how Dent was affected by them now.
He’d been feeling odd as of late. Over-the-moon for Amy, but dogged by self-doubts. What did he really have to offer her?
Drumming his fingers on the ring in his breast pocket, he decided to slip into the pew on his right. He wasn’t even sure why he was here, but he had questions and thought Jesus might share some answers.
Not that he was exactly on a first name basis with the Lord, but Amy kept telling him Jesus was patient. When Dent was ready to surrender his heart, God would be waiting. She was fond of saying He isn’t going anywhere.
“So, Lord—” He flinched, chagrined by his volume. He set his hat beside him and folded his hands. “Lord,” he whispered, “I’m a flawed man. She’s beautiful, smart, tough, the most patient woman I’ve ever known.” He saw the faces of her children in the classroom. “But not just with them. With me. Sometimes I feel like I love her so much, I think I’d quit breathing if I lost her.” He shook his head, again seeing the little puff of red wool as the bullet entered her shoulder.
Because of Dent, Ed Coker had nearly killed her. To add insult to injury, the slimy, murderous politician—the mayor of Evergreen—had gotten off. He and his attorney had argued all the evidence was circumstantial and Coker had walked free. At least he had walked on out of Evergreen.
“I don’t have anything to bring to the table other than a reputation as a heavy-handed U.S. marshal, a gifted hangman, and an awkward town sheriff. I haven’t caught the man who killed my pa. I couldn’t get a conviction on the man who shot her. She deserves a whole lot more for a husband, Lord. A doctor or a lawyer.” He slipped the simple gold band from his pocket to ponder it. “Not some two-bit lawman.” Disgusted with his dark past and its trail of bodies, he felt like tossing the thing across the room. “I’m not worthy of her love...or Yours.”
“You can’t think like that, Dent.”
Pastor Wills’s voice startled Dent up from the pew and he spun like he was about to be fired upon. The old man waved his hands. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to spook you.” He motioned for Dent to sit back down as he sat across the aisle from him. “My apologies for eavesdropping, but I walked in and there you were. Seemed more respectful to quietly wait you out.”
Dent fel
t his cheeks heat up. He’d been caught praying. He’d humiliated himself a lot of different ways over the years but this had to be the worst. “You could have walked out instead of listening.”
“Honestly, I started to.” Pastor Wills stared up at the cross, the corners of his eyes crinkling with concern. “But something you said stopped me.” Slowly, he swung his gaze back to Dent. “You said she deserves more than a two-bit law man. And that you’re not worthy of her love...or God’s. Dent,” he shifted in his seat to face him, “First John 4:10 says ‘Herein is love,’” emotion filled the pastor’s voice. “‘Not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’”
Propitiation? Not knowing the big word made Dent feel worse. “I-I don’t understand.”
Pastor Wills grinned kindly, like he was talking to a child. “Let me explain it in a different way. Though mankind was lost in sin—lost in darkness beyond description—that didn’t change the fact that He loved us and He wasn’t going to lose us. To break the curse of sin, to win us back, He had to die for us.”
“How did His dying save anybody?”
“Sin entered the world through one man—Adam. And one man—Jesus— overcame it. The ultimate sacrifice motivated by pure love.”
Dent was utterly baffled by this idea of dying for humanity and thereby cutting the smooth path to Glory. He held his hands up like he was trying to guess the length of a fish, a very big one. “I can’t—it’s so big—the—the idea of what you’re telling me.”
“I know. I know. It’s hard to understand. But, simply put, God loves us in spite of ourselves. He doesn’t qualify us. He has no expectations of perfection. He loves us as we love our own children. At least that’s the closest comparison I can give you. And like any good parent, God refused to just let the enemy come and snatch us away.”
The Brides of Evergreen Box Set Page 22
