by Merry Farmer
“Uh, let’s not move the blankets any time soon,” he managed to whisper as the two of them snuggled closer. “I don’t think it would be seemly.”
Eden snorted with laughter. “No, husband, it wouldn’t.”
Off to the side, the singing and talking continued, which only made Eden giggle harder. Dire peril and all, she couldn’t ever remember being happier.
Those warm, cuddly feelings carried her off to sleep and lasted clear until morning…when she was awaken by the sound of a revolver being cocked beside her head.
Chapter Nine
Eden gasped, scrambling in the tangle of blankets and Luke for one of her revolvers.
“Looking for this?”
Her eyes snapped up to find her brother, Braden, his Colt pointed at her with one hand, his other hand holding her gun belt. Luke’s reaction was a second too slow. He thrashed in confusion at Eden’s sudden movement, and as soon as his sleep-bleary eyes settled on Braden, he jolted to full wakefulness. Somehow he managed to shoot to his feet and to take Eden with him, shielding her with his body.
“Well, well, little sis,” Braden snorted. He scanned the two of them—both disheveled and half-dressed, but with all the important bits covered, thank heavens. “Who’s this piece of steak I found you wrapped around?”
“I’m her husband,” Luke growled, the muscles of his back rippling with tension. “Who are you?”
Eden tried to scoot to the side and step around Luke, but he held her back. Of all the times for him to be a noble, protective husband.
Braden laughed, low and sour. “What, you mean she didn’t tell you about me?” His eyes widened, then narrowed to a sharp scowl. “Husband?”
It wasn’t going to be good no matter how she answered. Across the way, the rest of the ranch hands were only beginning to wake up in the early morning mist. They wouldn’t have a chance to reach for weapons before Braden took two or three of them out. She knew her brother too well.
“That’s right,” she said, trying to buy them as much time as possible. “Luke and I are married.”
Braden sneered. “Now, Bitsy, what’d you go a do a fool thing like getting married for?”
Eden cringed at the name. Dread seeped through her alarm. This time, when she stepped away from Luke, he let her go.
“Bitsy?” Luke blinked at her.
“Bitsy Briscoe,” Braden said. He twitched and sniffed. “She’s my sister.”
Luke’s shoulders bunched tighter, and he pivoted to face both Eden and Braden, hands held ready at his sides. “Your sister. Bitsy?”
Eden licked her lips, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, wishing that she had at least one of her Peacemakers in her hands. At least she’d mentioned to Luke that she had brothers. The name thing…well, that was a problem.
She shifted to deal with Braden first. “Don’t call me that.” It took every nerve she had to relax her posture and face her brother’s loaded gun as if it was candy floss.
Braden curled his lip at her. “What, Bitsy? It’s your name.”
“Not anymore.”
“Eden isn’t your real name?” Luke shook his head, lost.
Eden puffed out a breath. “Eden Gardner? Garden of Eden? You really didn’t figure that name was made up?”
“But…” Luke’s jaw hung open as his thought drifted off. He snapped it shut, shook his head, and said, “Are we really married then?”
“Yes.” She swallowed. At least, they were until he figured out he should be furious with her and kicked her out of his life. That thought was so painful that she rushed on to drown it out. “I had my name legally changed after entering Hurst Home. A couple of the girls did.” She turned to Braden. “I am not Bitsy Briscoe anymore.”
It was Braden’s turn to gape and shake his head. Thank God above that he lowered his guns as he did. “Brent isn’t gonna like that.”
The very mention of Brent’s name left Eden shaking with fear. She hated every ounce of that fear, which only made her furious. “Why are you here, Braden? What do you want?”
“I’m here to fetch you,” Braden said.
“But how…how did you all find me?”
Braden shrugged. “Kyle Cooter thought he saw you in Nashville. Brent sent cousin Buford to investigate. He tracked you down to some home for women. Didn’t take much to corner one of those gals in an alley and make her squeal about where you’d gone next.”
Eden’s flash of fury over one of her friends being intimidated or worse was cut off when Braden tossed her gun belt at her feet and gestured with his own gun.
“Pack your things up and come along.”
Braden started to turn away, until Eden barked, “No.”
He froze, turning to stare at her with narrowed eyes. “No?”
Luke stepped into action, standing between Eden and her brother. “She said no.” It would have been far more convincing if his voice wasn’t unsteady with confusion.
“It’s all right, Luke.” She touched his arm, wanting nothing more than to hold it, to hold him tight. Luke pivoted to send her a questioning look. Eden took a breath and faced Braden. “I’m not going anywhere with you, Braden. Luke is my husband. I’m staying with him. And even if he wasn’t.” She paused, the words she had tried so hard to say to her brothers for so long sticking in her throat. “I…I don’t want anything to do with you boys anymore.”
It hurt. Even now, such simple, straightforward words—words that made perfect sense, and that anyone with half a brain would see were the right words to say—ripped her apart. The only family she had left, and she hated them.
No, she reminded herself. It was Brent she hated. Brent was the one who broke all bonds the day he pulled the trigger and shattered what was left of everything the word “family” stood for.
Braden rubbed his stubbly chin. “Brent ain’t gonna like that,” he growled. “He ain’t gonna like that one bit.”
Eden willed her racing heart to still, her hands to stop shaking, and the tears to stop flowing. “I don’t care what Brent likes.” She could only manage to get the words out in a whisper. “I told him I would leave and I did.”
“Yep.” Braden tilted his revolver to the side, fiddling with it as if he would point and shoot at any second. “And Brent said if you left, he would hunt you down like the bitch you are and put a bullet in your head, just like he did Branch.”
Luke jumped into action, lunging toward Braden, hands stretched toward his throat. The only thing that saved him from a bullet in the gut was that he caught Braden unawares. The shock of being attacked caused Braden to stumble back and drop his gun. It was already cocked and went off. The bullet whizzed off into nothing, but the bang shook the horses and cattle nearby, and woke the rest of the camp up in a hurry.
Within seconds, Travis, Mason, and the others were up and scrambling toward the confrontation. Only a few had guns of their own, the others grabbed whatever was near to hand. Cody ended up with a frying pan. Lawson ended up with her Winchester.
“Get back,” Travis shouted, leveling his revolver at Braden.
It was a pointless order. Luke already had Braden in a choke hold, fist raised.
“Stop!” Eden shouted. “Let him go.”
“Let him go?” Luke echoed, incredulous. “He was going to hurt you.”
“He wouldn’t hurt me, he’s my brother,” Eden insisted, hoping she was right. “Let him go.”
Luke hesitated, the tendons in his wrist tight as he squeezed Braden’s neck. Braden was quickly turning purple, eyes bulging with anger more than fear. Those eyes were trained on Eden.
Mike and Billy rushed up to them. Billy dove to retrieve Braden’s gun. As soon as Luke saw that there was no way Braden could get his hands on a weapon and that he had back-up, he let go.
“If you ever come anywhere near my wife again, I will hang you from the highest tree and cut your heart out.” Luke’s voice was so full of fury that it shook. In spite of everything, Eden’s heart swelled with pride i
n him.
A second later, she crashed back to earth.
“You don’t just walk away from the Briscoe Boys,” Braden snarled, hoarse. He pointed a long finger at her. “You’re one of us, and you always will be.”
“No.” Eden shook her head, throat clogged with tears. “I don’t want that life anymore. I’m done with the thieving and the violence, done with it.”
“Never.”
“You go back and tell Brent.” She summoned her last ounce of courage and added, “If you dare face him.”
Braden blanched. Pure terror lit his expression as he realized what returning to Brent empty-handed would mean. Eden knew the feeling all too well.
A second later, and his face hardened with disgust. “Fine, then. Call yourself by a fancy new name and shack up with this hunk of meat as a husband. You won’t live long enough to enjoy it once Brent finds out, and you know it.”
Luke jerked toward him, fist upraised, but Braden learned quickly. He turned tail and sprinted for the horse that Eden now noticed standing several yards off.
“We’re coming for you,” he said, and with an ease that she too had practiced in years of robbing banks and trains, Braden leapt onto his mount and kicked it into a full gallop before Luke or the other ranch hands could start to move.
As soon as she was sure he was gone, Eden went limp with misery and burst into a sob. It was messy and undignified and made her feel like the worst sort of ninny, but she couldn’t help it. Especially when Luke wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tight.
“I’m sorry,” she managed along with a wet sniffle after a few seconds. “I’ve been trying to work out a way to tell you about them. I hoped they’d leave me be, let me start over. I…I guess I knew they wouldn’t.” She collapsed into a fit of tears as the truth hit her.
Silence broken only by the lowing of a restless herd followed. With her face buried against Luke’s chest, she couldn’t see the reactions of the others, but then, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see them.
“Bitsy?” Luke asked at last.
Eden winced and pushed herself far enough away from the comfort of his chest to drag her guilty eyes up to him. “I always hated that name.”
“Short for Elizabeth?”
She shook her head. “Miserable father who was so upset he had an itsy, bitsy girl instead of another boy that he cursed me with it.”
A hint of a smile pulled at the corners of Luke’s mouth and lit his eyes. It hardened a moment later, as did his arms around her. “I’m not going to let them hurt you or take you away, but you have to tell me what’s going on.”
Eden swallowed and nodded. She knew it without him telling her. That gave her courage. She pushed away from him, squared her shoulders, and met his eyes.
“My name used to be Bitsy Briscoe. I was part of a gang with my brothers, the Briscoe Boys.”
“The Briscoe Boys?” Lawson frowned and scratched his head. “Where have I heard that name before?”
Luke furrowed his brow. A moment later, it popped up in surprise. “I know. I heard Alice Flint and Emma Meyers talking about a gang from Missouri called the Briscoe Boys once. Seems they had a friend on their journey out West on the Oregon Trail named Lynne. Her pa was a judge from St. Louis who sentenced some members of that gang to hang. They threatened to hurt Lynne, so she went to Denver, to her uncle. She married the man who her uncle sent to escort her, Cade Lawson. But one of the Briscoe Boys came along on the trail in disguise and tried to kill her.”
Eden sighed and nodded. “That was my Uncle Ben. One of the men who was hanged was my father.”
Luke and the rest of the boys stared at her with varying degrees of shock and suspicion. There was a whole lot more she needed to say. Silly though it was, she crossed to Lawson to retrieve her Winchester. Holding it, wrapping her hands around the smooth, worn wood would give her courage.
“My father and his brothers formed the original gang,” she explained, fiddling with her rifle so that she didn’t have to meet anyone’s eyes. “That judge pretty much destroyed the gang. But at the time, my brother Brent was old enough to pick up where Pa and my uncles left off. The rest of us were just kids, though. Ma never had much of a backbone, and she was terrified of Brent. We all were.”
She swallowed, choking on the memories she had of her mother. Old anger—that her mother had done nothing to protect her, that she’d let everything fall apart and only cowered in the corner while Brent bullied the rest of them—welled up in her.
“Come over here and sit down,” Travis suggested.
The others hummed and nodded and jumped into action. Luke stepped up to Eden’s side, slipping a hand around her waist and guiding her to the embers of the campfire that had been lit the night before. Cody and Billy rushed to find blankets for Eden to sit on, and Mason started a new fire while Lawson grabbed beans and a grinder to make coffee. Travis, Oscar, and Mike sat with her, looking ready to hang on her every word. Their kindness and show of support nearly had Eden in tears again.
As they gathered, Luke planted himself so close to her side that she was almost sitting in his lap. Eden continued to hold her Winchester with a tight grip.
“Go on,” Luke said softly. “Tell us the rest.”
Eden sent him a weak smile before sinking back into her memories. “Brent was revenge-minded from day one. I’ve never known anyone so full of hate. He taught us all how to shoot, how to ride, how to pick pockets and cheat at cards. Some of my brothers, like Braden and to a certain degree Bert, took to those evil ways like ducks to water. My youngest brother, Branch, and I only went along because if we didn’t, we’d get a beating.”
Luke tensed beside her, his arm holding her tight.
She shook her head and brushed that part of her past away. “I focused on what I liked best—shooting—and tried to pretend the rest didn’t exist.”
“You’re a good shot,” Lawson said, grinding coffee beans across the restarted fire.
“Yeah, we saw that,” Mike agreed.
Eden shrugged, her energy drained. “As long as I kept practicing and stayed good at it, Brent didn’t pay me any mind. When we all got old enough to pull a heist, he set me up as the sharpshooter. My job was to climb up to a roof near whatever bank the boys were robbing or to take cover nearby and to pick off any lawmen or anyone else who tried to come after them.”
Luke drew in a breath. Several of the others’ eyes grew wide with shock.
“You…you ever kill anybody?” Oscar asked what they all must be thinking.
Eden swallowed and shook her head. “I aimed for arms and legs. I never wanted to kill a soul in my life, and as God is my witness, I did everything I could not to. But I don’t know what happened to the men I shot once we rode out. We never stuck around after doing a job, we always ran.”
“Which is why you’re so adept out here on the drive,” Luke finished with an understanding nod.
“I’ve roughed it before,” Eden confirmed. “In fact, my entire life since I was thirteen has been roughing it, more or less.”
“That’s why you said you just want a house and a husband and children,” Luke said, letting out a long breath. He pulled her closer, planting a kiss on her head.
It was such a relief to have him understand—to have someone finally understand what her heart had longed for all these years—that it gave her the strength to get through the next part of her story.
“I left after Brent killed Branch.”
The camp went still, all eyes on her with a mixture of horror and pity. No one said a word, so she went on.
“We’d just robbed a train in eastern Kansas. That’s as far out West as we’d ever gone before. By that point, Branch and I were through. The robbery was messy, Braden broke his arm and Bert got shot. So did Branch, but it was only a graze. He’d had it, though. That night, Branch put his foot down. He said he was through, that he wanted to go clean and start a new life. Brent argued and threatened, said there was no better life. It got bad.
”
Her voice failed on the last words. Her heart bled with sorrow and regret. Tears stung her eyes.
“I loved Branch,” she went on in a half sob. “He was the only good thing in my life. He was my brother, my true brother, heart and soul. But when Brent raised that gun and pointed it at his head, I froze. I didn’t do anything to stop him or protect Branch. I didn’t…I didn’t think he’d actually do it. But he did.”
She flinched at the memory of Brent’s gun firing, Branch jerking and twisting as the life snapped out of him. Now as it was then, she went numb, stomach churning.
Luke pulled her onto his lap and hugged her so hard the black memories flew away. He buried his face in her hair and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
Eden was sorely tempted to disappear into the comfort of his embrace, but the story wasn’t over.
“I did nothing,” she whispered. “I stood by and let Brent shoot him. We all just sort of locked up and stared at Branch’s body on the floor afterwards. Even Braden and Bert were horrified. Brent didn’t have a lick of remorse, though. He spit on Branch’s body and said that that’s what any of us would get if we ever crossed him.” She took a deep breath and went on with, “I left that night when they were all asleep.”
“Good,” Cody exclaimed with a fierce nod.
“And you went to Hurst Home?” Mason asked.
Eden shrugged. “Eventually. I didn’t know where I was going and I only had so much money. I zigzagged back from Kansas, but I knew I couldn’t go home to St. Louis. I drifted south, trying to stay away from big cities, until I figured out that there were more people in big cities and I could hide better. I ran into a traveling preacher and his wife in Memphis, and they told me about Hurst Home. I’ve never been more surprised in my life than when Mrs. Breashears took me in with no questions asked.”
“And thank the Lord she did,” Luke said, holding her as if he would never let go.
Eden did thank Him. Every damn day. Her story was over, so she let out the tension she’d been holding and sank into the warmth and protection of her husband’s embrace.
