by Micki Miller
But then, Frank was licking her face. Penny opened her eyes to find his furry snout and sparkling brown eyes. Working her mouth and using her shoulder, Penny was able to lower the gag.
“Frank, you overpowered him!”
“No,” Garrett said from the door. “I did.”
Chapter 12
Garrett stood, frozen in the doorway as if an arctic wind had blown through and turned him to solid ice. Seeing Penny like that, face swollen, head bloodied, a thin line of blood trickling from a cut at the base of her throat, he wanted to go out and pound the unconscious Zeke Cotter until the outlaw’s ability to recover was long past.
“Garrett,” Penny said. Tears filled her eyes until they flowed over the edge and down her face.
Her reaction to him set Garrett into motion. He untied her hands and feet, then took a cloth from his shirt pocket and used it to wipe the blood from her throat. The cut barely broke the skin, thank goodness. He then inspected the injury to her head. It was no longer bleeding, but it needed tending.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” he asked, shocked at how difficult it was to get the words past the tightness in his throat.
“No,” Penny answered, and then looked at his swollen eye. “What happened to your face?”
“Oh, that. It was a gift from your pal Smokey.”
“That sweet man from the Rusty Nail? Whatever did you do to provoke him?”
“What did I do?”
“Does it hurt?” she asked, with a gentle touch to his face.
“I’m fine.” Now. He lifted Penny to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. He buried his face in the soft curve of her neck. Her pulse beat against his cheek, and Garrett was sure nothing in his life had ever felt so good, not even close.
He understood now why he so wanted to hear her say again that she loved him. It was because he loved her, too, loved her the way his father had loved his mother. He loved her and he wasn’t ever going to let her out of his sight again. If that meant tying bells to her feet every night, then that’s what he would do.
“How did you find me?” she asked. She didn’t loosen her hold. Neither did Garrett.
Frank rubbed himself against Garrett’s leg, and Garrett glanced down while keeping Penny within the tight circle of his arms. His spill of emotions ran down to the dog. If it hadn’t been for Frank’s good nose and stubborn perseverance, things would have turned out quite different.
While he’d been sitting in front of the telegraph office waiting for Cotter to show up, Frank kept his nose to the ground. Then the dog moved into the road. The many mixed scents he found there threw him for a minute or so, but then he picked up the trail again. The dog was halfway up the hill toward the little wooden shack when he turned and ran back to the middle of the road, spinning in agitation and barking until Garrett caught on. All his years of experience had nothing on Frank’s nose.
“Actually,” Garrett admitted. “It was that dog. He followed your trail. I just followed him.”
Penny twisted away then, and crouched down to hug the dog. “Oh, Frank. You’re such a good dog!”
Frank accepted her hug and her praise, looking over her shoulder to give Garrett another one of those arrogant dog grins. This time, Garrett didn’t mind. The dog had earned the right. Penny stood up and tipped her head back to look into Garrett’s eyes.
They both spoke at the same time.
“Garrett.”
“Penny.”
At Garrett’s nod to continue, she said, “I’m sorry for causing you worry.”
“I have a feeling you’re going to cause me all kinds of trouble over the next few decades.”
“Decades? What are you talking about?”
He drew her back into his arms and leaned down to kiss her then, long and hard, possessing her mouth, as he would soon have the rest of her. She raised her arms to wrap them around his neck and kissed him back with equal fervor.
Finally, Garrett broke the kiss. He gazed down at her flushed face, at her kiss-swollen lips, at the dreamy lust in her eyes he knew couldn’t possibly equal his, and said, “What I mean is we’re getting married.”
Penny stared at him for a moment, before blinking herself into coherency. “Married?”
Garrett ran a hand down her back, resisting the urge to dip into the waistband of her trousers. “Yes. Married. And soon.”
Her brow furrowed and she said, “But, you haven’t asked me.”
“I haven’t…oh, right, well…”
“A woman wants to be asked. You can’t just assume—”
Garrett stopped her tirade with a kiss before she worked up any steam. After a long while he stood back, took both of her hands in his, and said, “Penelope Wills, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Penny’s smile was brighter than the sun, but before she could answer, another voice broke in.
“No, she will not,” said Bentley from the doorway.
Garrett and Penny both turned at his voice. Now, not only did Bentley have the scratches on his face, but also an ugly scrape along his jaw. Likely, it was a memento of his run-in with Frank. His other injuries certainly were. Blood stained his torn shirt and coat, as well as the shredded left leg of his trousers. His free hand pressed against his right side. Penny could see puncture marks on the back of his hand where Frank had bitten him.
Bentley stood before them, furious yet confident, leaning slightly, favoring his right leg.
Bentley had retrieved his gun from Cotter, the one he lost to Penny, and then Penny lost to Cotter. Garrett silently cursed himself for simply tossing the gun away after he knocked Cotter unconscious and secured his hands behind his back. He’d been so anxious to get to Penny, his mind wasn’t working the way it should. Now Bentley pointed a gun right at them. Garrett moved to put Penny behind him.
“Stop,” Bentley said. “Or I’ll shoot her first.”
Bentley stepped all the way in and closed the door behind him. Frank hunched his shoulders and growled.
“Shut that dog up, or I’ll shoot him in the head.”
Penny bent over to sooth Frank. The dog quieted but kept his eyes on Bentley.
Bentley pointed the gun at Penny but looked at Garrett. “Toss your gun on the floor over there. Slowly.”
With great reluctance, Garrett did as instructed.
“The posse from Mill’s Creek is all over this town,” Garrett bluffed. “As it stands, you haven’t personally killed anyone. You could save yourself from the gallows by turning yourself in.”
“Nice try, Kincaid. I know for a fact most of those fools headed back to town with Sheriff McElroy. That idiot will be lucky if he still has a job after this debacle. The men who are still out looking for Cotter are far from here. Now sit down on the floor, both of you. And then scoot back against the wall. Yes, that’s right.”
“That’s what Zeke Cotter meant when he said we’d have some time together,” Penny said as she scratched Frank behind the ears. “You planned on meeting him here all along.”
“I picked out this place weeks ago.” He looked down at Penny, first with sadness, then with anger. “You couldn’t just leave well enough alone.”
“Well enough, as in married to you?”
“Like you could do better.”
“She could do better with the town drunk,” Garrett said, drawing Bentley’s attention away from Penny.
Bentley’s face tightened, reddening his skin from the neck up. He turned the gun toward Garrett. “I should shoot you first.”
“No!” Penny shouted, springing to her feet. Frank stood beside her.
“Don’t tell me you actually care for this…this servant of the courts.” Bentley sneered.
Penny’s chin lifted. “Garrett is a good and decent man. He’s brave and smart and on your best day, you’re not fit to polish his boots.”
When Bentley looked as though he would strike her, Garrett said, “Funny thing is, if you hadn’t panicked and gone after Cotter, you might have gotte
n away with it. Even if he confessed, you could have claimed he was lying, using you as a scapegoat. There was no proof. It would have been your word against his, a fine upstanding citizen against a known outlaw.” He tugged on Penny’s pant leg until she sat back down.
“I didn’t panic,” Bentley scoffed. “The plan all along was to meet him here. I did everything right. That clod out there couldn’t even keep his face covered, couldn’t follow the simplest of instructions. He was supposed to take the money from the safe. I told him he could keep half of it. I think that fool was more excited about killing than he was about the money. The idiot wanted to use his knife. I actually had to promise to pay him extra to use a gun.”
Garret felt more than saw Penny stiffen beside him. His mind worked at a furious pace, trying to figure a way to overtake Bentley that didn’t put Penny in danger.
“I still can’t believe he left all that money just sitting there,” Bentley continued.
“Going to make it harder to pay off your gambling debts,” Garrett said.
Bentley paled for a moment before crimson anger claimed his expression. “How do you know about that?”
“I didn’t until just now. It was a guess. I’m right, though, aren’t I? I know you didn’t do it for love. You don’t love Penny. You had a good job, a decent life. As far as I know there haven’t been any investigations into bank fraud.”
“I am not an embezzler,” Bentley said, raising his chin, as if stealing was somehow worse than murder.
“You don’t strike me as a man with enough backbone to be that greedy,” Garrett continued. That is, unless you were desperate.”
Bentley reddened further. He stretched his gun-holding hand toward Garrett.
“Don’t you dare shoot him!” Penny shouted.
Bentley then swung his arm so the gun pointed at her.
“Gambling debts will do that to a man, especially if they’re big enough,” Garrett said, goading him.
“Bunch of cheats,” Bentley muttered. He deflated a little before he focused again and aimed the gun at Garrett’s chest.
“We’re too close to town,” Garrett told him. “People will hear a gunshot. They’ll certainly hear four.”
“Good try, but I thought of that when I chose this place to meet that imbecile outlaw. You don’t think I’d actually let him keep the money, or risk him blackmailing me, or shooting his mouth off. No, we’re far enough back and up the hill. People will hear the shots, but no one will know where they came from. Not until they find your bodies, and that won’t be for a while. As you can tell, this old shack isn’t used for anything anymore.”
To Garrett, Bentley said, “Drag Cotter back in here.” He pointed the gun at Penny’s head. “Move slowly, and don’t try anything.”
Garrett stepped out just far enough so he could take hold of Cotter’s feet and drag him back inside the shack. He’d already cuffed the outlaw’s hands behind his back, not that it mattered. He was still out cold.
“Make sure he’s in far enough so the door will close,” Bentley said, watching the marshal with a careful eye while keeping the gun pointed in Penny’s direction. Cotter was only halfway in when Bentley had to step back to make room. He stumbled on his sore leg, cursed, almost fell, but caught himself in time.
“Bentley,” Penny said.
Having been distracted for just a moment, he turned back toward Penny, and to his surprise, she had gotten to her feet. Before he could tell her to sit back down, before he could even raise the gun, she threw a handful of dirt into his face. He cried out his fury, dropping the gun as he grabbed for his eyes. Garrett snatched up the gun as Penny began kicking Bentley with all she had. When Bentley bent over to protect himself, she was on him.
Penny threw herself at him with such force they both hit the wall of the shack before falling to the ground. Garrett held onto Frank, who was snarling and barking, making every effort to get to Bentley. As long as she continued to be the dominant force, Garrett would let her have this.
While Bentley was bigger and stronger, the dirt made a direct hit into his eyes and blinded him. That, and the unexpected surprise of the attack, gave Penny the advantage. She knelt atop him, her knees pressing into his stomach, and pounded at Bentley’s face and upper body as hard as she could with both fists while screaming her rage. Bentley begged her to stop, kept shouting her name, but he might as well have been whispering, for all she could hear over the great release of her rage and grief.
Not until she’d spent her anger, not until her words fell into sobs and her tired fists landed on the back of Bentley’s protecting hands with light thuds, did Garrett let go of Frank and lift her from Bentley. The man was breathing hard and crying through the blood running from his nose and his mouth. Once Penny was off him, he curled up into a ball on his side, whimpering about needing a doctor. Frank stood guard beside him, fully attentive, ready to pounce if needed.
Garrett used the discarded ropes to secure Bentley’s hands behind his back before wrapping his arms around Penny. She wept against his chest while he held her close. When her sobs turned to hiccups, he kissed the top of her head and held her some more.
Chapter 13
The wedding had been a grand affair, surprisingly, since they’d only had three days to put it together. That was as long as Garrett was willing to wait. Actually, he wanted to be married back in West Bend and claim Penny for his wife as soon as the local sheriff came to help him put Zeke Cotter and Bentley Werner behind bars. Once the ordeal in the shack was over, Penny was anxious, too, to start their new life together. But she deserved a real wedding, and she was going to have it.
The entire town, it seemed, pitched in to help. Pearl took charge of organizing the food, and Coleen O’Conner sewed nonstop making Penny’s dress. Everyone came to celebrate with them. After the tragedy of the robbery and murder, the people of Mill’s Creek were anxious for the happy occasion. There’d been lots of dancing in the airy barn to the music of three fiddlers. There was enough food to feed the entire town for a couple of days, and so many well wishes both Garrett and Penny had aching faces from all the smiling.
After a time, Garrett decided he had waited long enough. He ushered Penny to the door and told her everyone was having such a good time no one would notice if they slipped away. Penny didn’t believe that for a minute, but she pretended she did.
On the moonlit stroll back to Penny’s house, now their home, they held hands, smiling more than speaking, Frank trotting along beside them. Once inside, the dog hopped up on the sofa and made himself comfortable. Neither Garret nor Penny would ever think to forbid him.
It took them nearly twenty minutes to get from the front door of the house to the threshold of the upstairs room because they kept stopping for just one more kiss. Once inside Penny’s bedroom, an awkward silence arose.
Garrett glanced around the room. Frilly lace everywhere. Pink and yellow everything. He picked up a stuffed rag doll resting against the pink pillows on her bed. After a moment, he set it on the chair at her dressing table. It was the only chair in the room, and it looked too delicate to hold his weight.
“We’ll redecorate,” Penny said, smiling at the incongruity of this large, powerful man standing in her girlish bedroom. In his fine suit, he cut quite a figure. The dark finery made him look even more masculine, something she’d not thought possible. He was the finest man she’d ever seen. And now, he was her husband.
“Glad to hear that’s something I won’t have to fight for,” Garrett answered, turning his gaze from the feminine room to his beautiful wife.
His wife. The title went through his mind for the millionth time since they’d spoken their vows. She was lovely, in her simple white gown with tiny, pink roses embroidered on the billowing skirt. Her lace veil now hung down her back, laid over the golden waves of her hair. She was the most feminine, most magnificent sight he’d ever seen. And she was all his.
Over the last few hours, they’d laughed and socialized and danced and danced.
He wasn’t even close to tired. Penny wasn’t either, he saw. But she had gone suddenly shy.
He watched as she opened a drawer and lifted out a fresh nightgown. He was about to tell her she wouldn’t need that tonight, but as she closed the drawer, he saw the slight tremble in her hand betraying her nervousness. She didn’t move then. She just stood there, clutching her nightgown to her chest.
“You know,” he said. “I don’t even remember if we closed the front door. I’d better go check before we end up with a kitchen full of raccoons.”
It turned out to be the right thing to say. That was clear by her exhalation of relief at having the privacy to change. Besides, it would give him time to cool down. He wouldn’t rush her. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman in his life, but she needed to ease into things here, no matter how difficult that was going to be for him.
When Garrett walked back into the bedroom, Penny was turning down the bed, dressed in a prim, white nightgown tied all the way to her throat with a thin, white ribbon. Her hair was loose and down around her shoulders. It flowed in a rippling river of sunshine nearly to her waist. She looked so innocent and beautiful, and nervous. She fidgeted with the sheet, smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles.
Garrett looked around the room, trying to think of something to say. She’d turned the lamp light down low. If he had his way, the light would be up all the way. He’d waited too long to see her. He settled with turning it up just a little.
She turned from the bed and clasped her hands before her, eyes cast toward her bare toes. She seemed about to say something, but then didn’t.
“Penny?”
She lifted her head to face him, opened her mouth, and then looked down again. A moment later, she raised worried eyes as high as his chin.
“Talk to me Penny?” he said in his most gentle tone.
Meeting his patient gaze, she said, “My mother died when I was seven.”
