All three of them popped up and dashed forward, shooting. The stage splintered. Needles of wood gouged and slit. Her buckskin jacket and leather riding skirt were decent protection, but her face had been clawed by the wood. A chunk of oak slammed into her head and knocked her backward. She fought her way back to the window. Blood flowed into her eyes and she swiped at it with her forearm. Her vision cleared for only a moment before more blood flowed.
They charged again, shooting. She saw where they went, though each time they’d slip around and emerge in some unexpected place. Then, with their guns in play, her grip shaky and her vision blurred, she couldn’t take good aim.
They had about two more of these charges before they overran the stage.
Had it been long enough? There should be men in Colorado City who’d come running, especially to protect a woman, but also to fight for the stage, to fight for right. She knew the West, and yes, there was lawlessness, but there were also plenty of men who used their strength to maintain the peace.
C’mon, Parson. You’ve had time. A man on a fast horse could be coming soon.
She watched out the window, eyes riveted on the trail. Watching, hoping, praying for anything to aim at. Did God answer such a violent prayer?
A sudden flash of silver drew her attention. That first man she’d seen with his stupid silver hatband. He was close enough to gain the stage. She saw even with just this glimpse of him that his muscles bunched to run. Her last chance. Her son’s last chance. At least his last chance to have a mother who was alive to raise him.
She aimed her rifle, swiped the blood away from her eyes, stilled her trembling hands through sheer will, and fired.
A cry from the bushes stopped everything.
The three men didn’t appear for another charge. Callie watched for another shot. Time moved as slowly as if her pa’s pocket watch ticked in her ear.
There was nothing.
And then the sound of hooves pounding toward her from Colorado City. They gave her such hope that again she was hit by a need to cry.
Waste of time.
She heard more running horses. This time from the outlaws. They’d been driven off.
Time to come out now. Time to go get her son.
Forcing her eyes to move, she saw her hands. There was a lot of blood. Looking down, she saw her jacket soaked in crimson. A stab of pain drew her eyes to her left arm. An ugly stake of wood at least three inches long stabbed through the leather of her fringed jacket. Blood poured from that wound.
How much blood did a woman have to spare anyway?
Her hands were rigid on her rifle and pistol. The stage was riddled with bullet holes.
Her mind told her hands to let go, to ease off the triggers before she accidentally fired again, this time into the chest of some rescuer.
The horse from Colorado City stopped and she saw a man’s legs and backside as he swung down from a pretty gray. The edges of her vision darkened until it was like looking through a long, narrow tunnel.
Then the man turned.
It was Seth Kincaid.
Alive and well. He’d have been better off dead.
She could arrange that.
She still had her gun.
Chapter
2
Seth saw the stagecoach driver lying halfway in the bushes on the side of the trail. He’d ridden right past him. Seth wheeled around to go help.
A bullet whizzed out the window of the stage and missed him by little more than a foot. Seth drew his six-gun.
“Seth Kincaid, you get back here and let me shoot you, you low-down skunk.”
A woman.
A woman who knew his name.
A woman who knew his name and wanted to kill him.
He’d never had much luck with women.
He was pretty sure he’d heard that voice before, but he couldn’t place quite where.
The memory conjured up a pleasant feeling in his chest. Which sure didn’t match with the threat and the gunfire.
Almost getting shot was thrilling. Grinning, he dropped to his knees and crawled forward. He saw the open trapdoor of the stage. The gunshots had come from the other side, so maybe he could disarm the woman threatening him.
And maybe not.
Maybe he’d get shot.
Finally he was having some fun.
His heart banged and he felt more alive than he had in weeks. As he crawled he tried to figure out why her voice made his spirits rise in a way that had nothing to do with the reckless fun of being in a gunfight.
Just when he was ready to poke his head up so he could get a look through the trap, riders approached from the direction of Colorado City. He ducked into the undergrowth alongside the trail in case the outlaws had circled around and were coming back. He waited until he saw the star on the man who led the way. He holstered his gun. Then stepped out, his hands in plain sight.
“I just heard the gunfire and came running, Sheriff. I’m Seth Kincaid. We’ve met.”
“Howdy, Seth.” The sheriff had sharp eyes, and with a quick look around he snapped out orders. “Four of you men stay behind and help the wounded. The rest of you follow me. The parson said the outlaws are wounded. Maybe we can round them up.” The sheriff spurred his horse and about half the posse charged on past the stage.
“Kincaid?” A man riding like he’d never before sat a horse brought up the rear of the six armed men. “I’m Parson Frew. She told me to find Rafe Kincaid.”
“That’s my brother. We can talk later. There are two wounded men here and there’s a woman in the stage.” Seth raised his voice. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
“Seth Kincaid, you get over here where I can get you in my crosshairs.” The woman sounded purely loco.
Seth liked her more all the time.
But since she wanted to shoot him, he didn’t obey her.
“The sheriff’s here now, ma’am. His’ll be the first face you see.” The sheriff was gone, but Seth wasn’t in the mood to go into details. He just wanted the woman to quit shooting long enough to disarm her.
The parson swung off his horse and ran toward the stage.
“Have a care, Parson, she just took a shot at me.” Seth followed after the man, knowing his chances of living through this scrape had just gone way up. After she plugged the parson, she’d feel bad and all the fight would go out of her. Too bad for the parson. Too bad for Seth, because all the fun was gone.
“I’ve brought help.” The parson didn’t even pause as he stuck his head into the nearly shredded door of the stage. “Dear Lord, have mercy!”
The tone brought Seth along fast. He looked in the door to see a woman coated in blood. Her face, her jacket, her hands. She looked dead. Two guns lay at her side, but her hands were lax on the triggers.
“She just spoke to me.” Seth felt the wildness that always haunted him as he shoved the parson aside and ripped off what was left of the door. He reached in to the steeply canted stage, driven by a terror that made no sense—even for someone as prone to jump into danger as himself. Catching her around the waist, he dragged her out of the stage, cradled her in his arms, mindful of the nasty wooden shard high on her left arm. The bleeding was terrible. He couldn’t begin to know what she looked like.
“I’ve got to get her to the doctor.” Seth raced for his horse. In his urgency he only distantly noticed that she fit in his arms in a way that was near perfection. It was all strange. How did she know his name? Why did her voice touch something deep inside him? Why did he feel like he’d held her before?
Why had she tried to shoot him?
Although honesty forced him to admit he had that effect on a lot of people.
He looked down at her as he swung onto his horse. He could make out nothing through the bleeding.
“We’re right behind you, Kincaid. These men aren’t as torn up as her, but they need looking after, too.” A deputy waved him down the trail. “Doctor’s office is—”
“I know the way.” Juggling
the woman and his horse was trouble. Her blood seemed to flow faster with each bump. To cradle her more gently, Seth slapped the reins between his teeth to get both hands free, spurred his horse, and charged downhill. It struck him that he didn’t know who she was. But he knew on a soul-deep level that this woman was someone important.
Goading his horse, he charged over a twisting trail at breakneck speed. He felt as if the devil himself were in hot pursuit as he ran for his life.
Except he was running for the woman’s life, not his.
He heard hoofbeats from behind and glanced back. The parson was coming after him hard. The man sat on his horse like an easterner. An easterner who’d never been on a horse. Trying to keep up with Seth would probably be the death of him. And yet the woman didn’t have any time to spare. She was bleeding out even as he held her in his arms.
Seth leaned low over his horse’s neck until the woman was pressed against his chest. The trail finally straightened and hit a level stretch.
Without slowing, Seth finally had time to look at the woman and saw a fast-moving trail of blood coming from her temple. Trying not to jostle her, he pulled the kerchief off his neck and pinned it to the cut by pressing her face to his shoulder.
There were more wounds, but he couldn’t tend them and make good time.
God, protect her, care for her. Don’t let her die, please, God.
It was the most fervent prayer Seth had prayed in years. In fact, the only prayer since he was a kid when he spent an afternoon dancing with the devil.
Seth had escaped the pointy-horned varmint that day in the belly of the cavern, but he’d been haunted ever since by the notion that he’d paid for survival with his soul. He’d left it behind, deep in the bowels of the burning belly of the earth.
He’d been looking for his soul ever since. And now this woman had inspired a prayer.
The strange idea fled as Seth galloped into Colorado City. A doctor had his office on the edge of town and Seth raced straight there.
He swung down, the woman still fitting perfectly in his arms, and rushed for the doctor’s office.
“I need help.” He slammed the door wide, shouting, “Fast. This woman’s bad hurt!” A small entry room was empty. Before Seth could get through the next door, it swung open and a gray-haired man took in the situation with one glance.
“Follow me into the back.” He wheeled around, moving fast for an old man.
Seth still almost ran him down.
The doctor pointed at a table. “Lay her there.”
Seth set her on the high, hard bed as gently as possible. He still had her temple pressed to his chest, holding the kerchief in place.
“Get me some water. There’s hot water on the cookstove behind me.” The doctor issued the rapid-fire order and Seth obeyed. There was no one else there, no patients, no nurse to help the doctor. Seth returned with the basin and set it beside the doctor, then rounded the table.
“Let’s get her jacket off.” The doctor reached for the front of her buckskin coat and stopped. “That’s as good as pinned to her arm.”
The doctor leaned close and pulled at the edges of the jacket to see the wound. “What happened to her?”
“She was in a stagecoach holdup. The sheriff should be right behind me bringing in two more wounded. I don’t know how bad they are.”
“I hate to pull that out. I’m not sure how much more blood she can stand to lose. And I don’t have time to give her much tender care if more are coming.”
The doctor looked at Seth, almost as if he was asking for a second opinion. Seth shrugged. “It’s gotta come out sometime, Doc.”
With a firm jerk of his head, the doctor said, “Let’s get her coat off the other arm before I pull out that peg.”
When only her wounded arm was still in the jacket, the doctor pulled the wooden shard out quickly. The woman moaned. The first sign of consciousness.
“Get her jacket off. We’ll stop the bleeding in that arm first and then see what else we have to deal with.” The doctor cut her dress sleeve away.
Seth and the doctor fought a short brutal fight against the pouring blood. Soon her arm was tightly bound. The doctor was quick with a needle on four slashes on her scalp. He clipped the hair away in all four spots with ruthless disregard for a woman’s vanity.
“No bullet wounds.” The doctor washed the woman’s bloody hands. “Ugly scratches but no stitches needed here.” He turned with his cloth to bathe her face. Reaching for the water, he hesitated. Seth saw how dark red the water was.
“Get me some clean water. How long was she out there bleeding?”
“I heard shooting and came running for the stage. She was still conscious when I got there, but the shooting was over.”
He didn’t count the shot she’d fired at him.
After all, she’d had a hard day. If she’d been just a little further from death, she’d have been thinking more clearly and she might not’ve pulled the trigger.
“The sheriff came along a minute after I got to the stage.”
A commotion in the front of the building turned the doctor’s head. He shouted, “Bring ’em on back!”
The door opened and the parson came in alone.
“I thought there were more wounded.” The doctor looked from the parson to Seth.
“The sheriff isn’t far behind me.”
“Parson, do you know this woman?” Seth remembered what the parson had said. “What did you want with my brother?”
“She stayed behind.” The parson looked overcome with guilt. “I said I’d stay, but she was good with a gun. She said if I stayed to hold off those outlaws, we’d all die. If she stayed and I ran for help, we all had a chance to live. But leaving a woman behind . . .” The parson’s throat worked as if he couldn’t push the words past his shame.
Seth well understood how the man felt. But he’d seen the man ride. This woman, with her buckskin coat and two guns, her voice full of challenge, she’d made the right decision.
The doctor began bathing her face. Seth watched, riveted on the slowly emerging woman. Who was she? How did he know her?
Which reminded him. “What about my brother, Parson? What did she want with him?”
A woman entered the room and drew Seth’s attention. She had a baby in her arms. A fat little dumpling of a boy wearing brown overalls with a brush of dark brown hair. The boy was younger than Ethan and Audra’s baby Lily.
The baby smiled straight at Seth with a devilish glint in his wild blue eyes.
“She said if she didn’t survive the robbery, Rafe Kincaid was her son’s uncle and he’d care for the boy.”
“U-u-uncle?” Seth couldn’t seem to get any more words past his throat. In fact, he barely managed that one.
“Yep, did you say Rafe Kincaid is your brother?”
Seth nodded, words still beyond him.
“Well, then, you’re the boy’s uncle, too.” The parson smiled.
The doctor was cleaning up the woman, and Seth thought maybe, if he turned to look right now, he might recognize her.
“That’s great. You can see to the boy, then.” The parson lifted the baby out of his wife’s arms and stepped toward Seth.
Dear Lord God in heaven, I’d better recognize this woman!
The parson extended the fat toddler toward Seth and the little guy smiled, his eyes flashed, and in the course of a few seconds Seth had a vivid, terrifying parade of memories of all the reckless things he’d done throughout his life to risk his neck. This little one seemed eager to do the same.
The parson thrust the baby into Seth’s arms, and Seth had to hang on to keep from dropping the tyke. The baby giggled and kicked Seth in the belly and slapped him in the face. Except for the giggling, Seth expected much the same reception from the boy’s mother.
Seth sure hoped he did recognize her.
Because it looked like she was the mother of his child.
Chapter
3
She was beautiful. S
tunning. Skin darkly tanned. Features as beautiful as an angel. She had lush, curling dark hair. Even snarled and bloody, he was tempted to run his hands into it. His fingers almost itched to touch the silky length.
Callie. This was her. He knew the name from her letter and he knew nothing else. Especially nothing about a child.
Eyes flickered open. Dark eyes. So black he couldn’t see where the center began.
Seth stifled his frustrated regret. He’d really been hoping her eyes were just as blue as the boy’s.
She looked right at him, and flat on her back, barely conscious, riddled with wounds, her first reaction was to swing her fist.
It wasn’t a bad shot, but she’d lost a lot of blood. Seth ducked in time.
He hoped she would cheer up before she regained her strength. Until then, he shifted around so the baby was right in her line of sight. The kid made a decent shield.
“Seth Kincaid, get your hands off Connor.” She pushed at the doctor’s restraining hands.
Connor. He had a son named Connor.
“Lay still now, Mrs.—” The doctor looked at her, then Seth.
She was too busy trying to attack to answer the man.
“Kincaid. She’s Mrs. Kincaid.” Seth knew that because of the letter. A sudden flash of memories almost weakened his knees. A shotgun blast to his back. The war. Fire. He was on fire. For a second he was drawn into the fire as if it were now.
“This is your wife?” The doctor cut off the waking nightmare.
“Uh . . . wife. Yep, sure enough.” Sure wasn’t the right word to use. Although he was sure. Being sure and remembering were two different things.
She muttered something that he couldn’t understand, yet her tone held a threat so dire he was glad she was disarmed.
He’d bet anything that she was going to expect him to remember her.
The outer door banged open again. The sheriff came in supporting a bleeding man. Behind him, two men carried a second injured man who was beyond walking.
Seth glanced at them but he didn’t take his eyes off the injured woman for long. Apparently, despite a lifetime of reckless behavior, he had some sense of self-preservation.
Mary Connealy - [Kincaid Brides 03] Page 2
