The Irish Westerns Boxed Set

by C. H. Admirand

  The man opened his mouth to speak, just as the front door burst open.

  Ryan watched the imposing figure standing there stride into the room. He noticed the star pinned to the man’s chest at the same time he noticed Mick hot on the man’s heels.

  “Mick? Why aren’t you with your mother?”

  “A fine name, lad,” O’Toole said, before Mick could answer Ryan’s question.

  “Justiss?” Turner called out. “That you, Ben?”

  The tall man nodded, seeming to take in the situation and decide his gun was one too many. “You might want to put away those guns now, boys,” he said over his shoulder.

  That’s when Ryan noticed the Burnbaum brothers and three other young men he’d seen about town, moving up to flank the lawman. As a unit, the boys holstered their weapons, but not the unspoken promises of retribution etched on each one of their faces. The sound of someone crying snagged his attention.

  “Where’s Pearl?” he asked.

  Turner nodded toward the kitchen. “I’d bet they’re holed up in the kitchen.”

  Ryan headed in that direction, when a movement out of the corner of his eye redirected his attention. His gaze snapped back to the men huddled on the floor. He mentally counted and came up one short.

  “I heard O’Toole had five men.” His voice was tight with the need to shout.

  Turner’s eyes met his, and Ryan knew he had heard right. One had gotten away! “Justiss?” Turner called out.

  The marshal slipped out the front door, but Ryan’s gut feeling, and the echoing sound of pounding horse’s hooves fading in the distance, told him it would be too late. The outlaw was long gone.

  Ryan slipped quietly into the kitchen. Pearl sat at the kitchen table, white-faced and bleeding, from an evil-looking cut slicing across her cheek and from her split and swollen bottom lip. Pearls wasn’t the one crying. In fact, he noticed she appeared to be oblivious to her injuries and was instead soothing the waif-like child sitting on her lap, clinging to her. Four young women, ranging in age from twelve to seventeen, hovered around her, trying to staunch the blood, but only one was crying. The other three looked mad enough to spit nails.

  He cleared his throat, and everyone in the room turned to face him.

  “Mr. Ryan?” Pearl sounded surprised; her voice sounded weak and thready.

  “Aye, Miss Pearl,” he said, taking off his Stetson and holding it in his hands. “Is anyone else hurt?” he directed the question to the oldest of the girls. She shook her head.

  “What have you got there?” he asked, noticing the way the tiny girl on Pearl’s lap burrowed deeper into Pearl’s embrace.

  “Emma,” Pearl whispered.

  Ryan wondered if Pearl was afraid of him. He’d met her once or twice before, after Maggie nagged him into riding out to The Ranch to lend a hand with repairs to the chicken coop, but she hadn’t seemed bothered by him then. Why now? Was something else wrong?

  He watched Emma tighten her hold around Pearl’s waist and heard the woman’s sharp intake of breath. Had she fallen and cracked a rib? “Girls, can one of you please take Miss Emma, while I have a look at Pearl?”

  “Why do you want to look at Pearl?” one of the girls demanded, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  “She don’t owe you nothing!” another bit out.

  “Anything.” Pearl said, then addressed the oldest girl. “Amy, please take Emma.”

  Before the girls changed their minds, Ryan drew up a chair and sat down next to their guardian.

  “Does it hurt to breathe, too?”

  Pearl’s startled gaze met his. “How did you know?”

  “I stepped too close to the southbound end of a northbound mule once.” He intentionally kept his voice light, hoping to ease some of the tension in the room. “Blasted mule broke three of my ribs!”

  “Oh, Pearl,” he heard someone cry out from behind him.

  He ignored the cry and focused on the woman. After a few moments of silence, and intense glaring on his part, she finally nodded. “All right then,” he said with a nod of his own, gently probing her ribs.

  She winced.

  He grimaced. “Can you walk?”

  “I dragged her in here,” a tall girl answered.

  He looked up at the young woman and saw the way the expression on her pretty face hardened. “They kicked her, Mr. Ryan.” Tears sprang to her huge brown eyes. “When she refused to let them into the kitchen, they started beating her.”

  “I’m still here, Amy,” Pearl whispered, placing a hand on the girl’s arm. Ryan knew she had to be in a lot of pain, but she still sought to ease the girl’s worry. “All I need is a bit of a rest.”

  “Ryan!” Turner called out, striding into the kitchen. He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the battered, bleeding Pearl. Ryan watched the way compassion slipped across his brother-in-law’s face before it hardened into a mask of rigid control.

  “Which one of them hit you?” Turner demanded.

  Pearl shook her head at him, refusing to answer. Ryan thought he knew why. Though their backgrounds were different, he and his brother-in-law were cut from the same cloth. They both had a need to protect those weaker than themselves. Any man who beat a woman deserved to be punished, and he intended to see that O’Toole and his gang got what they had coming to them.

  “Let’s get Pearl out to my ranch. She won’t be much good on her feet for the next couple of weeks.”

  Turner didn’t answer immediately.

  Ryan turned to one of the girls and asked her to pack a few things for Pearl. Amy again acted before the others and took a step forward. “We can take care of her just fine right here.”

  “Have you been out in the dining room?” Ryan asked. When the young woman shook her head, he continued, “It’s going to take some doing to build more tables and chairs. Ordering replacement windows from the mercantile will take time, too.”

  “We still don’t need your help,” one of the other girls spat out. Ryan thought she looked to be around Mick’s age.

  “Daisy, please.” Pearl was weak, but she still held some sway over her charges. “Mr. Ryan has kindly offered his ranch. Why don’t we take him up on it?”

  “But he didn’t invite us,” another of the girls blurted out. “Just you!”

  “Did you think I would let you girls stay out here all alone after what happened?” Ryan was incredulous. But from the looks on their faces, the girls obviously thought he would do just that.

  “What difference would that make?” another one asked.

  “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding, ladies,” he said, satisfied with the way the girls were now staring at him. “Pearl will need all of you with her, or else she’ll spend too much time worrying about you, instead of concentrating on healing.”

  The girls stubbornly remained silent, waiting.

  He was reminded of a certain dark-haired woman. And there, he thought, was the answer. They needed prodding along to get them moving where he wanted them to go. “Would you all please accompany Miss Pearl out to my ranch while she recuperates?”

  “Why didn’t ya just say so in the first place?”

  Ryan just shook his head. Were all females as contrary as Bridget?

  “You have five minutes to pack a few bags,” he announced. “Mick can drive you all in the wagon—”

  “What about Pearl?” Amy demanded.

  Ryan shook his head, “Ribs are tricky,” he said, looking at the very pale and very quiet Pearl. Her eyes were huge and glassy. He hoped she wouldn’t suffer too much on the journey back to his ranch. “I’ll carry her,” he told the girls.

  “Why can’t she ride with us?”

  “The wagon ride might be too jarring,” Pearl explained simply.

  As one, the girls slipped from the room and up the back staircase. Before he knew it, they returned with two large, bulging carpetbags.

  Amy stopped to check the oven to make sure the fire was out. Satisfied that it was, she scooped the st
ill-silent Emma up into her arms and nodded in his direction. “We’re ready, Mr. Ryan.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “He’ll be fine, Bridget,” Maggie insisted.

  “But he’s just a boy!”

  “Ye don’t want to be sayin’ that when Mick can hear ye. He’s had to look out for ye, hasn’t he?”

  Bridget swallowed the words she had been about to say. Maggie didn’t deserve the lash of her temper. Besides that, Maggie was right. Although her son’s methods were questionable, he had done what he thought best.

  “Aye, he has.”

  “And done a fine job of it, too.”

  The sound of horses approaching broke through the tension in the room. Bridget flew to the door and rushed outside. She had to see for herself that Mick, and James, were unharmed.

  The sight meeting her eyes was not one her heart was ready for. James Ryan rode up to the house cradling Pearl in his arms, as if she were a precious burden. The greenest of envy swirled through Bridget like a vine, creeping into tiny unseen crevices, letting its roots take hold.

  He had held her like that in his arms, just last night. Had it meant more to her than it had to him? Had she been so blinded by the intensity of his lovemaking, that she’d fooled herself into believing that James actually felt more than mere lust toward her? There had been compassion and caring, hadn’t there?

  “Bridget.” Maggie’s voice was close, but she hadn’t heard her approach.

  “Me brother cannot help his need to take care and protect others. ’Tis a part of him ye must accept if ye intend to let your feelings match the look in yer eyes.”

  Bridget’s head snapped around to face Maggie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, stifling her need to strike out and hurt, as she had been hurt.

  In that moment, while she and Maggie stood and watched, James carefully handed Pearl down to Reilly’s waiting arms, she debated telling Maggie how she truly felt about James. But the need to confide her feelings was overruled by her need to learn more about the outlaws who had held Pearl and her girls hostage.

  * * *

  Ryan let Reilly carry Pearl into the house, unnerved by the similarities between Pearl’s situation and Bridget’s. Both women had been injured protecting the ones they loved. Though Bridget nearly starved herself in order to feed her son, Pearl had stood up to a group of soulless outlaws in an effort to keep them from hurting the girls she’d vowed to protect.

  “Put her in the guest room,” he heard Maggie order. She bustled about the kitchen, reheating the water he knew they would need to care for Pearl’s injuries. Oddly, Bridget had not moved from where he had first spotted her, standing on the back porch.

  Had she heard the name of the outlaw? Was the man her husband? Bloody hell, he hadn’t the time or the inclination to worry about her or their tangled web right now. There were five unhappy young women about to arrive, and the sixth stood wringing her hands by the foot of the stairs.

  “Will she be all right, Mr. Ryan?”

  He could tell from her red-rimmed eyes that Mary had been crying. He didn’t think he wanted to listen to yet another of Pearl’s charges weeping. “In a few days, she’ll be right as rain.”

  She seemed to accept his word as gospel. Mary sniffled a bit, wiped the backs of her hands over her eyes, then nodded. “What can I do to help?” she asked, eager to lend a hand.

  “Why don’t you go ask Brid—Mrs. O’Toole?” he suggested.

  Maggie was telling Reilly how best to settle Pearl onto the guest-room bed when Ryan walked through the bedroom door.

  “Don’t be jarrin’ her now,” she warned.

  “She may have a couple of cracked ribs, Maggie.”

  Her gaze shot to his. “And how would that have happened?” Ryan didn’t want to tell his sister all that had occurred. She was carrying, and women in her delicate condition shouldn’t be upset. Should they?

  “Later,” he said. Thoughts of Bridget lying in his bed, just last night, distracted him. He shook his head, hoping to dislodge the image. “Later,” he promised before he fled the room.

  The woman was addling his brain, and right now he needed it to be clear. He had to find out what Marshal Justiss knew about O’Toole and his gang…and whether or not O’Toole had ever been married.

  * * *

  Sam Paige, O’Toole’s right-hand man, reined in his bone-weary mount, slid from the horse, and dropped to his knees in the soft dirt by the bank of the stream. His destination was only a few miles from here. He swept off his hat, scooped it full of clear, cold water, and poured it over his head.

  Ignoring the way his horse’s sides heaved, drawing in much-needed air after their all-out run from The Ranch, he set his hat back on his head and scooped up handfuls of the refreshing water and drank deeply. After a few minutes, his horse wandered upstream a bit and bent its head to drink.

  “Dang fool,” he spat out, thinking of the man he’d left holding the bag with the rest of the gang. “If I didn’t want that mine payroll so bad, I’d leave him there to rot. Got to get to Slim’s place, and see about a jail break,” he mumbled to his horse, tugging on the reins. The animal ignored him in favor of slaking its thirst in the rippling stream.

  Staring at the far horizon, Paige shook his head. “Can’t believe O’Toole still thinks the fire at his cabin was an accident.” He shook his head in disbelief. He hadn’t meant to knock the oil lamp over; he’d been in a hurry searching for that blasted Bible and the safe deposit key. Once the flames starting licking their way toward him, he panicked and fled, never once looking back, never once thinking of the young woman who lay sleeping or the infant in the cradle by the bed. He wondered if O’Toole knew he’d fathered a child.

  He shook off the terror of that fire, ignoring the lick of guilt swirling around where his heart should be. He still needed O’Toole to finish the bank jobs, and he needed Slim and his men to help him break O’Toole out of jail, or else they’d never knock off those banks.

  * * *

  Bridget buried the jealousy she felt toward her friend deep inside her. Pearl didn’t need to be bombarded by Bridget’s feelings of inadequacy and jealousy simply because they had been rescued by the same man. Even if that man had been the first one to touch her heart, or her body, since all those years ago when Michael O’Toole had swept her off her feet. Michael had confessed her eyes held the secrets of a wood nymph and he planned to spend the rest of his life discovering what those secrets were. James hadn’t paid her elaborate compliments, but his beautiful blue eyes, questing lips, and tongue made her feel as if he had.

  “Rest now, Pearl,” Maggie told their friend before turning toward Bridget and motioning for her to follow her out of the room.

  “Have ye seen to the girls?”

  Bridget nodded, turning away from feelings she’d rather keep buried. “Amy and Mary are working out a schedule as to who will sit with Pearl, while the others help out in the kitchen.”

  “Good. Pearl needs her rest—”

  Her words were interrupted by the sounds of raised voices coming from the kitchen. Bridget and Maggie hurried down the stairs to see what was wrong.

  “Because I said so!” a sharp voice snarled.

  Bridget took in the growing unease that was settling in the kitchen, like thick black smoke from a grease fire. “Girls, what seems to be the problem?”

  After soothing the roomful of ruffled feathers, Bridget settled the girls back to their tasks. Amy grumpily washed off a pile of potatoes and settled down to peel them for the midday meal, while Daisy, the instigator, went back to sweeping off the back porch. The rest of the girls grudgingly went outside to pick more onions and carrots for the stew.

  Putting the kettle on to boil, she and Maggie walked into the front parlor. “Do you think the man in jail could be your husband?”

  Bridget’s heart fluttered and her hands started to shake. To hide her fear, she started rearranging a mason jar filled with wildflowers.

 
“I don’t know.” The flowers were too far to the right. She fussed with them, centering them in the jar. “I never thought about it before, but it does seem strange that Michael’s body was never found.” For heaven’s sake, now the flowers tilted all the way over to the left.

  Giving up, she ignored the flowers and started pacing back and forth. The swish of her skirts was the only sound in the room. If he was alive, what did that make her? Still married.

  “And just what do you think the head of the Committee will have to say about that?”

  Bridget’s heart clenched in her breast. “I’m certain she’ll have the entire Committee standing on your front porch demanding that you take those poor girls back where you found them, right before they ask Mick and me to leave town!” Bridget’s chest was heaving with indignation at the thought of Sarah Burnbaum maligning those poor girls, or her son, in public.

  Maggie opened her mouth to speak, but Bridget kept on going. “What about Pearl? Do you think the Committee will give up after one attempt to evict her?”

  Maggie sat forward on the sofa, as if to speak, but Bridget kept on talking. “It only took three attempts to get rid of Mick and me, before we took the hint.” Bridget let her words fade, as she remembered their desperate situation. God, she’d been so scared Mick would starve right along with her! She shivered, reliving the nightmare. Somehow they’d survived. No. She shook her head. It wasn’t somehow. It was due to the help of a generous, kind-hearted rancher that she and Mick had not only survived, but thrived.

  But that was not the issue just now. She had to make Maggie see reason as far as Pearl and the girls were concerned. Sarah Burnbaum would not stop until she eradicated every last vestige of what the holier-than-thou do-gooder considered a blight on their town: The Ranch and all those involved with it. She could take care of herself and Mick, but Pearl and her girls needed help. They needed James’s help.

  “I think they should stay here,” Bridget said in what she hoped was a firm voice. She really didn’t like the thought of another woman sleeping in the bed she had slept in, being cared for by the compassionate rancher who had stolen her heart one tiny piece at a time.