“Have you spoken to him about his father yet?”
Bridget shook her head. “Every time I bring up Michael’s name, Mick finds a reason to leave the room. At this rate, I’ll never be able to explain what happened.”
The older woman patted her on the shoulder.
“Your Mick is smart boy,” Pearl said softly.
Mrs. Swenson agreed. “Be proud of him and wait it out. He’ll come around, and when he does, he’ll be more than ready to talk to you about his father.”
Wise words from a woman Bridget had come to admire greatly over the past few weeks. She shook her head. Could so much time have passed since she’d arrived in Emerson? It had been nearly two months since she’d left the safety of the Ryan ranch. Just thinking about all that she had left behind made her stomach cramp. It was for the best, she told herself.
“I hope so,” she answered Mrs. Swenson. “Time will tell.”
“We’re ready!” a chorus of voices called loudly from the foot of the stairs.
“Is there anything you need before we go?”
“We’ll be fine.” Bridget was always fine as long as she had someone to take care of. It was when she was alone, with no one to tend to, that she felt lost and without direction.
“Emma, would you like to ride out to see Maggie?”
Emma hid her face in the hollow of Bridget’s neck and shook her head.
“We’ll be home in time to make supper,” the girls promised Pearl.
The quiet that followed the hustle and bustle of the girls’ departure was unnerving. Bridget missed them already, but more than that, she was worried about where her boy might be. With a heartfelt sigh, she set Emma on her feet and took her hand. “Why don’t we go see if there are any more daisies or violets left to pick for Pearl?”
Emma’s solemn nod of agreement went straight to Bridget’s heart and wrung it. One day soon, she hoped the little girl would string more than a handful of words together. She wanted to know how the child had come about those bruises dotting up and down her spine and on her face and chin. Her stomach tightened into a knot of revulsion, knowing the child had been abused when she should have been given hugs and kisses.
Noticing Pearl’s eyes drifting shut, Bridget put a finger to her lips and tiptoed from the room. As they searched the back garden for the perfect flowers to add to the tiny handful Emma carried in her apron, Bridget wondered again what had happened to the man who had left Emma waiting quietly on the bench out in front of the mercantile.
Sarah Burnbaum had found her, and Millie Peabody had mentioned she’d seen the child sitting there waiting for him to return, but neither woman had been willing to take the disheveled, bruised child in. By the time she and Mrs. Swenson had heard about the girl and gone to the mercantile, the child had vanished. It wasn’t until a few days later that they learned what happened to her. Pearl had rescued yet another young girl, and taken the child into her home.
Two little hands cupping her face shook her out of her thoughts. “What is it, sweetie?” Bridget asked, noticing the troubled expression in Emma’s pale blue eyes. The child laid her cheek against Bridget’s, and Bridget’s heart melted. It was the first open show of affection that Emma had offered. Bridget reveled in the sweetness of the act and the emotions that flowed through her. She sat down amidst the flowers and drew Emma onto her lap, burying her face in the whisper-soft, sunshine-colored curls.
The quiet moment was shattered by a thunderous explosion. Bridget grabbed Emma and pulled her behind her to protect her. The first blast was immediately followed by a second. This one was muffled, but more powerful. The ground rumbled ominously beneath them, sounding like horses’ hooves beating the ground at a furious pace. Bridget was too afraid to look up. She simply gathered the precious child closer in her arms, praying that no harm would come to them or to the woman she was supposed to protect but had left sleeping upstairs
The rumbling sound grew louder, clearer, closer. Reason finally penetrated the fear that clutched her breast. Bridget rose to her feet, grabbed Emma, and began to run.
Too late. She and Emma were surrounded by a dirty, determined group of outlaws. Her life was over. It was the only thought that penetrated the shock of seeing her husband smiling down at her.
“Well, well,” Michael O’Toole murmured. “If it isn’t my wife.” The way he drew out the word wife left the impression that he could barely tolerate saying the word, let alone the woman attached to it.
How could she have so misjudged the man? Or had time simply changed him? She lifted Emma into her arms. The child burrowed into her embrace and held on with surprising strength. Emma depended on her, and Bridget would not let her down.
“What do you want?” she demanded through tightly clenched teeth. Now was not the time for social niceties. It was time for some answers.
“You.” Michael’s words had the blood draining from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She swayed, but reached deep and found the grit to hang on.
“Why?” Her voice cracked over the one word.
“Do the vows we spoke mean nothing to you?” he demanded, a hard glint coming into his narrowed, slate-colored eyes.
Of all the words he could have used, these were the ones she had no answer for. Her vows meant everything to her. She had honored them for years. Not once during all those years had she let any other man’s attentions make her forget the fact that she was a married woman.
Until the night a few months ago when she’d given up hope of regaining her strength or living to see Mick grow to adulthood. A saint of a man had come to their rescue; a tall, black-haired rancher who had carried her into his home, promising to care for her and Mick.
Just the thought of all that James had done for them, and meant to them, gave her the strength she needed to regain her composure. “Where have you been for the last twelve years?” she demanded, her voice growing stronger with each word.
A muffled laugh and rude suggestions from two of the outlaws didn’t shake her growing resolve. She needed to distract them. She had to do something to get them away from the house. Pearl was upstairs! She couldn’t let them hurt her again.
“Have you missed me then?”
She gulped in a much-needed breath and nodded her head. To give voice to the words would have been an out-and-out lie. The action seemed to take a bit of the tension out of Michael’s shoulders; they visibly relaxed. He turned and motioned to one of the men, who nudged his horse forward. Bridget tried not to stare at the hideous scar that slashed across the man’s jaw, and steeled herself to wait and see what he would do.
Instead of speaking, he motioned for her to come closer. It was then that she noticed the horse he pulled by the reins. He motioned for her to get on it.
“What are you waiting for, wife?”
“I—that is—what about…”
A nearby shout interrupted them. The sound of horses fast approaching spurred the group of men into action. Before Bridget could think of anything to say, Emma was ripped from her arms, screaming, while Bridget was lifted onto the back of the horse.
“Please don’t hurt her!” she began, only to be silenced by the leather-clad palm of her husband’s large hand.
Emma’s screams grew more gut-wrenching. “Please, Michael. I beg you!”
“Shut up, bitch!”
The words her husband uttered cut at her heart, leaving absolutely no doubt in her mind how he felt. Despite his crude words, a screaming Emma was plopped into her lap at the same moment another man whipped the hindquarters of her horse.
Her arms tightened around Emma, who immediately stopped screaming and settled into gut-wrenching sobs. Bridget wanted to cry right along with her, but wouldn’t give Michael the satisfaction of knowing he had succeeded in scaring the life out of her. Jaw clenched, teeth grinding, she kept her emotions from bursting free.
By the time the group of outlaws had made it to the edge of town, the men following them had not been able to catch up to them
or outrun them. Emma’s wracking sobs had lessened into occasional hiccups and sniffles. Bridget tried to soothe the poor little girl, hoping against hope that whoever had set off the explosion had not injured anyone in the process.
The farther from town they rode, the more her worry increased. What had happened to Marshal Justiss? He must have been injured in the blast, or else the outlaws would not be free. Had anyone on the street outside of the jail been hit by flying debris? She would never be able to live with the guilt if anyone had been seriously injured—or worse. It would be her fault. Michael was still her husband, and she would carry the guilt with her to the grave.
Bridget closed her eyes, willing the thoughts to the back of her mind, and concentrated on the stranger she’d been married to. Why had he left? Did he always have it in his heart to cheat and lie, steal and kill? Even without knowing any of those answers, she couldn’t ignore the fact that her strict upbringing would not allow her to think of breaking her vows. Bridget opened her eyes, lulled into a state of semi-calm by the horse’s rhythmic pace.
She blinked, opened her eyes, and rubbed them. The sight before her had not changed. The tall young man sat straighter in the saddle. “Mick!” she cried out. “What are you doing here?”
His gray eyes, so like his father’s, narrowed. “My father needed my help today.”
Her son’s words cut her to the bone. The wound ached. How could she have gone so wrong in assuming her son was on the right path? How could she have forgotten the morning she learned he’d tried rustling cattle?
But that was to pay the doctor! her heart silently cried out. What is he doing riding with such a disreputable group of outlaws now?
“Why, Mick?” she whispered, not daring to utter the words too loudly, not wanting her husband to overhear them. Her son gave her a long look before shrugging his shoulders and turning his back on her.
He took the reins from the scar-faced man and led her horse the rest of the way in silence. The cabin stood beneath a towering pine tree double the height of the cabin’s roof. She silently pleaded with her son to answer her question, but he had yet to do so. Deciding to give it one last try, she asked him again. This time he answered.
“Like father, like son. Isn’t that what people always say?” he growled out in a voice so like her husband’s, her blood froze.
“Mick—”
“You should have married Mr. Ryan when you had the chance,” he mumbled.
“But then where would I be now?” she demanded, knowing in her heart that she would rather spend her life on the run than ruin that good man’s name and reputation with her own.
Mick reached up to help Emma down. Once the little girl was on her feet, he reached up a hand to help Bridget down. “You’d be safe, Mother.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The first blast shook the foundations of the mercantile. The second shattered the front windows. Ryan came to lying on the wooden boardwalk out in front of the store, with a ringing in his head and a stinging sensation on the left side of his face. He reached a hand up to rub the sting away, surprised to feel a sticky wetness there. All at once, his senses returned with a vengeance. He was bleeding. Someone had blown out the front of the jail!
The thought instantly cleared the rest of the fog from his brain. He shot to his feet and sprinted past the two storefronts separating the jail and the mercantile. The smoking pile of rubble that had been the sheriff’s office looked ominous, but the mangled iron bars that had once securely housed more than one outlaw, and more recently the O’Toole gang, were a silent testament to the fact that not all men sentenced to remain behind bars would do so. A shaft of sorrow arced through him. By all rights, that’s where he should be: behind bars.
“Justiss!”
Ryan heard more than one person call out to the marshal. God help the man if he had been behind the desk when the dynamite had been thrown through the front windows. There was no other explanation for the extent of the damage he surveyed. Putting those grim thoughts aside, he ignored the multitude of aches blossoming all over his battered body and bent to the task of carefully shifting through the larger piles of stone and lumber. He almost hoped they wouldn’t find a trace of the marshal. He hoped the man hadn’t suffered.
* * *
A distant rumble echoed toward them from across the river, from the direction of the town of Emerson. Turner stopped and patted the horse’s velvety muzzle, soothing the suddenly fractious animal. Thunder? he wondered, looking up at the clear, crisp blue sky.
The second blast was more powerful, and more ominous. Thick black smoke rose up from where he knew the town to be. The front door of his house burst open and Maggie sprinted toward her husband and the marshal, who stood just outside the barn, unhitching the horse from Mrs. Swenson’s wagon.
“What do you think—” Turner began, but one look at the marshal’s thunderous expression, and he knew the thick black smoke would be all they would find of the former Emerson jail.
“Who did you leave in charge?”
The marshal shook his head, calling Turner’s attention to the group of frightened woman gathered on the front porch. “Maggie—”
“Don’t ye be frettin’ over me now,” she soothed, walking straight into his waiting arms.
“I’ll be back.”
“Aye, lad, ye will, or ye’ll not get a bit of that blackberry cobbler the girls will be helpin’ me make while yer gone.”
He pulled her closer and breathed deeply. Lavender and rain. How had he survived the first two decades of his life without knowing what that combination could do to a man? He placed his fingertips beneath her chin, raising her face up to his. Capturing her lips in a kiss of silent promise, he added the whispered words that would ease her heart and mind. “I’ll watch my back,” he promised.
Satisfied, she stepped out of his embrace. With a hand resting protectively over the spot where he imagined their babe lay sleeping inside of her, Maggie bade him ride safely and to be sure and bring the outlaws back. Dead or alive.
Two miles down the road, he finally received the answer to his earlier question.
“I’ve never made a mistake like this before.” Justiss swore ripely.
“Mistake?”
Justiss turned toward him, and Turner could read the anguish the man obviously suffered. “I didn’t think.”
“Think about what?” Turner urged.
“I didn’t think at all!” Justiss replied, grabbing his reins in hands clenched with anger. “I was so certain that you knew James Ryan was a wanted man that I couldn’t think beyond getting to the bottom of it. I didn’t leave anyone on duty!”
“I already told you that I didn’t know—”
Some of the agitation on the marshal’s face eased. He nodded his head in agreement. “And I said I believed you.”
“But not until you’d battered me with twenty questions. I never knew a man who could ask one question in so many different ways,” Turner marveled.
“Hell, I learned from the best,” the marshal said with a grim smile.
“Marshal Brodie is the best,” Turner agreed. “I never had the pleasure of working with him, but there isn’t a lawman in this territory or nearby who hasn’t heard about the man’s talent for tracking down outlaws and bringing them in.”
“What are we going to do?” Turner asked, after another quarter mile of riding in silence.
“We are going to find out what’s left of the jail. With any luck, the twin blasts will have blown the outlaws to Kingdom Come, but if not, then we’ll track them down and bring them in.”
Rounding the bend that led into town, Turner asked the one question he feared the answer to. “What about Ryan?”
“It’s time for some straight talking.”
“But what if he isn’t—”
Reining in their horses in front of the smoldering pile of rubble that once housed the sheriff’s office and town jail, Marshal Justiss swung his leg over the back of his horse and dismounted. �
��He is.”
Turner hoped the marshal was mistaken. What in God’s name would he tell Maggie? She’d never believe her brother was a wanted man! She’d never accept the fact that her brother had spent time in the jail in Amarillo. She probably didn’t even know what state Amarillo was in.
A dark thought crossed his mind. The baby. He couldn’t afford to upset his pregnant wife. He wanted Maggie to be healthy and whole, so that their baby would arrive healthy and whole. Every woman in town had offered advice regarding childbirth, and each and every one had warned that he needed to keep the mother happy and not to upset her. It wasn’t good for the baby.
“Are you coming?” the marshal called over his shoulder as he made his way over to an all-too-familiar, dust-covered, broad-shouldered figure.
“Ryan!”
The relief that washed over his brother-in-law’s features as he turned around to face them had Turner wondering just what Ryan thought he’d find, digging through the piles that littered the ground. Then it hit him: Ryan was digging for bodies.
“Justiss!” Ryan croaked out, swiping at the trickle of blood that seeped from a series of nasty-looking cuts on the side of his face. “We thought you were dead, man!”
Turner wondered if the marshal questioned the relief in his brother-in-law’s eyes. A wanted man would shy away from the law, wouldn’t he? Even after five or more years?
“Can anyone tell me what happened?”
Three men simultaneously stopped their digging and stepped forward, eager to fill the lawmen in, when a lone figure stepped out of the smoke. The woman swayed on her feet before collapsing in a heap not twenty feet away from where they stood.
Ryan was the first to reach to the woman’s side. “Pearl! What happened? Why are you here?”
By the time Turner and the marshal reached his side, Ryan had the battered woman cradled in his arms.
“Bridget—”
“Why didn’t she come with you?” Turner asked.
“Where is she?” Justiss demanded.
Ryan felt as if the bottom just dropped out of his stomach. “She isn’t at the boarding house, is she?” He asked the question, even though he already knew the answer.
The Irish Westerns Boxed Set Page 39
